Sugar-Free Irish Coffee Frosting for St. Paddy’s Day

Here is another exciting recipe for your sugar-free St. Patrick’s Day festivities. This is an adults-only delicacy, with a small but clearly noticeable boozy note. If you are not consuming alcohol at all, or would like to make a family-friendly version, there is a tip for that in the end of the post. Have fun and enjoy!

 

 

 

Sugar-Free Irish Coffee Frosting for St. Paddy’s Day 1/4 cup = 60 ml organic heavy cream 1 sachet = 2 teaspoons organic instant decaffeinated coffee 1 stick = 4 oz = 115 g organic butter, softened 1 cup = 240 ml Zsweet sweetener for baking OR Confectioner’s Style Swerve OR powdered erythritol 1 tablespoon Irish whiskey   Directions Combine the cream and the coffee in a small heatproof cup. Stir over low heat until the coffee is dissolved. Let the mixture cool down to room temperature. Beat the butter and the sweetener until almost white and fluffy. Add the coffee and cream mixture in thirds, beating quickly after each addition. Don’t beat too long, just that all the cream has incorporated into the butter. Add the whiskey and beat until well mixed. Don’t beat too long. Use immediately.

 

 

Nutrition information	Protein	Fat	Net carbs	kcal
In total:	2.6 g	113.7 g	2.3 g	1089 kcal
Per serving, if 8 servings in total:	0.3 g	14.2 g	0.3 g	136 kcal
Per serving, if 12 servings in total:	0.2 g	9.5 g	0.2 g	91 kcal
Per serving, if 16 servings in total:	0.2 g	7.1 g	0.1 g	68 kcal
Per tablespoon:	0.1 g	4.1 g	0.1 g	39 kcal

 

 

 

 

Tips for making the Irish coffee frosting

This is very quick and easy frosting to make, although you need to dissolve the coffee in the heavy cream and cool down the mixture at first, which is the most time consuming part when making this frosting.

Actually, the best piece of advice I can give is not to beat the frosting too long when adding the mixture of coffee and cream. Beat just that the cream is incorporated in the mixture to ensure the fluffiest and the most velvety result.

In my experience, the powdered Zsweet sweetener works best for any frosting. The pure powdered erythritol I have used before tends to feel gritty. It doesn’t dissolve completely, unlike Zsweet which dissolves beautifully and makes the texture smooth like velvet.

Well, the problem with Zsweet is, that for example Amazon and Netrition sell it, but they have been running out of the powdered version for some time. Luckily there is one company which imports the powdered Zsweet sweetener here in Finland. If you are interested, I know the guy and I’m sure he can deliver the stuff to you hopefully for a very good price, regardless where you live. Just send me mail via the contact form and I’ll give you the company’s information. I have to admit that I have received some free samples from the company, but I don’t get any profit whatsoever from the sales. If you know any other place where to get powdered Zsweet, I would be delighted to know.

Actually, there is still another powdered sweetener called Swerve. Since I haven’t found any way to get it here in Finland, I don’t have any experience in that stuff. Would be great to compare it with Zsweet and SukrinMelis which I have in frequent use.

But back to this frosting. For me 1 tablespoon whiskey gives just the right amount of whiskey flavor. You can adjust the amount of whiskey to your liking. I recommend to start with 1 tablespoon and add another one if you like boozier flavor.

 

 

 

My experiments when developing the recipe

When thinking of St. Patrick’s Day, I was immediately considering Guinness and using it in a rich chocolate cake. Unfortunately Guinness contains gluten, so it was out of question.

Next, I was thinking of Irish coffee. A hot drink containing coffee, liquid stevia, whiskey and whipped cream would have been a great option, but I wanted something more exciting. Irish coffee flavored frosting would be the answer.

I liked the frosting to be butter-based, quite like buttercream. In addition to butter, I insisted to use heavy cream since it’s an essential part of Irish coffee. The rest of the ingredients, coffee, sweetener and whiskey were quite self-evident.

The next question was how much of each ingredient to use. If I use 4 oz (115 g) butter for the base, what are the amounts of the other ingredients? I sifted through my notes of my old frosting experiments, and decided to use 1/4 cup (60 ml) heavy cream, one sachet caffeine-free instant coffee — simply because that’s handy — 1/2 cup (120 ml) Zsweet sweetener and 1 tablespoon whiskey.

 

 

I was wondering if the amount of heavy cream would be too much and the frosting gets curdled. I really haven’t seen frosting recipes using butter and heavy cream, they usually contain tablespoon or two milk instead of cream. Well, there must be a reason for that… In any case I wanted to try out 1/4 cup (60 ml) heavy cream to see what happens.

Naturally, the coffee should be first dissolved in the heavy cream. I needed to heat the mixture a bit before the coffee was cooperative. Then quick chilling in the freezer until the mixture was at room temperature and I was done with that part.

Next, the butter and the sweetener needed to be beaten until fluffy. That worked well. The mixture was very fluffy and velvety. I added the cream and coffee mixture little by little, beating after each addition. After adding all the cream, the texture of the frosting was even more velvety! I didn’t dare to beat too long, I was afraid that I get thick, buttery and curdled mass if I still continue beating.

The whiskey added the final touch. 1 tablespoon was my first thought of the correct amount, and that held: 1 tablespoon whiskey was enough to give just the right amount of nice, boozy whiskey flavor to the frosting.

 

 

Tips for variation

For a completely alcohol-free version, you can replace the whiskey with 1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract. Of course, it’s not the same as whiskey, but vanilla suits well the coffee taste.

You can sprinkle some dark chocolate shavings on top of the frosting. They look beautiful and taste great.

 

For a real St. Patrick’s Day treat, you can color the frosting green. Because I don’t like to use artificial colors, I used 1 teaspoon spirulina powder. The whiskey covers the slight spirulina taste very nicely. However, feel free to use your favorite food coloring.