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Perfectly creamy, slightly tangy and sweet, this Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe will become your go-to frosting! Smooth enough to spread and thick enough to pipe. This is a perfect recipe.
I love Cream Cheese Frosting. I love it on carrot cake, on cupcakes and especially cinnamon rolls. A lot of frosting recipes tend to come out too thin and look horrible spread on a cake, so it was my mission to come up with a thick and creamy frosting that was smooth enough to spread easily while still holding its shape so you could pipe it too. Sure enough, after a few tries of trial and error, I got it down!
Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
Easy and homemade you only need 4 ingredients to make this divine cream cheese frosting. Here’s what you need:
- Salted Butter – softened. If you use unsalted butter just add a pinch of salt later.
- Cream Cheese – softened. This is where all of that delicious tangy cream cheese flavor comes from.
- Powdered Sugar – to sweeten and to help thicken.
- Vanilla Extract – to loosen it up a bit and give it tons of flavor.
Variations
You can easily tweak this recipe to suit your dessert needs by adding different flavors. This can be in the form of subbing out the vanilla extract for others like lemon, coconut or mint. Or adding in dry ingredients like pumpkin spice, chai spice or cocoa powder. Experiment and see what you like, but be sure of one thing, this plain cream cheese frosting can stand on its own!
Secrets for making the best cream cheese frosting
My two secrets for this cream cheese frosting include:
- Use very very soft butter and very very soft cream cheese…as in left out on the counter for 6+ hours to ensure they both are the same temperature so they easily combine together
- Add in vanilla extract and DO NOT add in milk. Most frostings call for milk, but this one is a special case. Because you want this to be thick, you simply don’t add milk and stir it until it’s completely smooth and thick. As it stirs, you might second guess yourself because it seems like it won’t come together, but, if your butter and cream cheese are at room temperature, you will have no problems. When in doubt, keep mixing.
How to Make Cream Cheese Frosting
- Start your frosting by putting very soft butter and very soft cream cheese into the bottom of a large bowl.
- On top of that, pour in some powdered sugar and vanilla extract.
- Now comes the fun part! Use a hand mixer to stir stir stir it all together until completely smooth and thick. At first, it might seem like the powdered sugar won’t all mix in, but as you stir and work it together with the hand mixer, it will surely come together. Scrape the sides and stir again briefly to make sure it’s fully smooth and use as you’d like! Easy as that.
Again, it is thick enough to pipe, smooth enough to spread and holds its shape. It’s really the perfect balance of tangy and sweet which accompanies nearly any dessert perfectly.
Uses for Cream Cheese Frosting
I’ve been developing recipes for some time now and I have a ton of recipes that call for cream cheese frosting. Here is a couple I love!
- Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
- Soft and Chewy Gingerbread Bars
- Perfect Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Cake
- Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes
More Frostings to Check Out!
- Easiest Royal Icing Recipe
- Buttercream Frosting Recipe
- Marshmallow Frosting
- Easy Chocolate Frosting Recipe
- Reese’s Frosting
- Divinity Frosting
Printable recipe card is below. Have a great day, friends!
Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup salted butter at room temperature
- 8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 pound powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Place all ingredients into a large bowl. Stir with a hand mixer (or stand mixer) until completely combined, thick and smooth. Scrape the sides and stir again briefly to ensure a smooth frosting. Use as desired.
Creamy, sweet, and with a bit of tang! Loved this cream cheese frosting with vanilla cake and fruit.
If I wanted to make this chocolate, how much cocoa powder should I add?? Thanks
I tried this recipe and it turned out really good compared to buttercream frosting. This was able to withstand summer heat better.
Yummy! This looks so easy! I really want to try this for some cupcakes🧁🧁
[…] This Vanilla Cake Recipe will become your new favorite. A simple, 1-bowl recipe with a tender and moist crumb and just the right amount of sweetness. Delicious with vanilla or cream cheese frosting! […]
[…] give these other frostings a try: Amazing Chocolate Frosting Recipe, Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting, Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting and Vanilla Cinnamon Cake with Browned Butter […]
This is the hands down best cream cheese frosting ever! Even though it caused me to break my hand mixer (well it was over 15 yrs old) it was still perfection! Luckily my husband stepped in and stirred it by hand for me 🙂
Thanks for the best frosting ever! It was perfect on your carrot cake! !
[…] to nuts to coconut. Mine is the plain jane version featuring grated carrot and the most amazing cream cheese frosting and that is it. I did add a few nuts over the top for decoration, but I like my carrot cakes […]
Will this be added to your blog too? Didn’t see it. Thanks!
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