Today, I’d like to share a recipe with you. Not just any recipe… a cream cheese frosting recipe I have used dozens (maybe even hundreds) of times, and I love it each time!
There are two reasons I love this recipe… one is that it’s really, really easy, and the second is that it’s really delicious!
While I do also enjoy other styles of frosting, like Swiss Meringue Buttercream, Fluffy 7 Minute Frosting, or Whipped Ganache, this cream cheese frosting recipe is easier than any other. This is basically American style buttercream (which is butter, powdered sugar, milk), but with the addition of cream cheese.
The cream cheese is really the key ingredient, since it helps off-set the sweetness of the powdered sugar, and adds to the creaminess of the butter while also removing the greasy, pure butter flavor.
Another thing I really like about this recipe is that if you use these proportions, the frosting is not over powered by the cream cheese, it takes on the flavor of whatever extract or additional flavorings are added.
Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
½ cup (1 stick/8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter (set at room temp about 10 minutes, but should still be cool)
8 oz. Challenge cream cheese (directly from fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (always use pure vanilla extract if possible)
4 cups powdered confectioners sugar
1 to 4 Tablespoons heavy cream, heavy whipping cream (or milk- although I do like the richness that cream adds)
Directions:
*Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth. Add cream cheese and blend until fully combined and smooth, about 30 seconds.
*Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and blend on low speed until combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy.
*Slowly add the heavy cream, a little bit at a time until desired consistency is met. (Don’t add too much if you want the frosting to stay in place when piped on cupcakes.)
*Beat until fluffy, about 1 minute.
*Use at once or keep refrigerated. (This frosting will keep well in the refrigerator for several days, but you may need to re-beat it for the best texture.)
The recipe above will produce a delicious VANILLA flavored frosting, here are a couple of other options to try…
For a Stronger Cream Cheese Flavor: Use an additional 4 oz. (½ block) of cream cheese. This is good for any cake/cupcake recipe that is traditionally topped with Cream Cheese Frosting, like Carrot Cake, or Red Velvet Cake.
For Chocolate Frosting: (my favorite!) add ½ cup unsweetened cocoa (I use Ghirardelli brand, it’s really good). Add the cocoa powder before adding the powdered sugar, so it gets fully incorporated into the butter and cream cheese.
Strawberry, Blackberry, etc: Add 2-4 tablespoons of preserves. Depending on how chunky or seedy the preserves are, you may want to blend it in the food processor, and/or strain it through a fine strainer before adding it to the frosting. Add the preserves to the frosting mixture before adding the heavy cream. Depending on the amount of preserves you add you may need very little or no cream, especially if you want the frosting thick enough to pipe. A final option would be to add a drop of food coloring to add to the color of the preserves (for example, pink coloring for the Strawberry flavor).
* This recipe will frost about 22-24 cupcakes if you are piping a nice swirl, or even more if you just spread it on. If you’re making a cake, this will frost and fill a two layer 9″ cake.
How To Make Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter set at room temp about 10 minutes, but should still be cool
- 8 oz. cream cheese directly from fridge
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract always use pure vanilla extract if possible
- 4 cups powdered confectioners sugar
- 1 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream heavy whipping cream (or milk- although I do like the richness that cream adds)
Instructions
- Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth. Add cream cheese and blend until fully combined and smooth, about 30 seconds.
- Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and blend on low speed until combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy.
- Slowly add the heavy cream, a little bit at a time until desired consistency is met. (Don't add too much if you want the frosting to stay in place when piped on cupcakes.)
- Beat until fluffy, about 1 minute.
- Use at once or keep refrigerated. (This frosting will keep well in the refrigerator for several days, but you may need to re-beat it for the best texture.)
Notes
Nutrition
hi, what do you mean by heavy cream? do you mean extra thick double cream?
here in the uk we have single cream, double cream, soured cream, extra thick double cream and whipping cream….
single and double cream both have the consistency of water so i dont think its either of those you mean.
think when you say heavy cream you mean extra thick double cream???
please help!
Hi Lulu, Because I live in the U.S., I am only familiar with the terms we use here. For this recipe anything from whole milk to cream will work fine, as you are only using a small amount. The purpose of the cream in this recipe is only to add a bit of richness and also to thin the frosting enough to make it creamy and easy to work with.
Heavy Whipping Cream (as it is called here) has a fat content of 35-38%, and has an slightly thicker consistency than milk, but is still very liquid.
By the way, I read some of the issues that some of the other fans had run into and thought I’d mention a few things about my experience: … I did not have to add ANY cream to mine. Also, if you have chunks of butter, you did not mix it long enough. It should be smooth like frosting itself before you move on to the next step. If it starts to separate, put it in the fridge, when you remix it, make sure you keep at it until it stiffens up again. I add a teaspoon of cake flour and mix mix mix. Unlike cake mix, frosting is ok to keep on mixing. I steamed some blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, blended them, put them in the freezer to cool and then added a couple of tablespoons of it to my frosting and … I have a light lavender colored berry flavored LIGHT frosting that I piped onto my fluffy cupcakes!
OH MY! I didn’t have any cream cheese available but I had some Mascarpone cheese for a tiramisu I was planning on making next weekend, so I used that instead. Can I just say that your recipe is SO light and fluffy that I just wanted to sit there and eat the bowl of frosting. I despise store-bought frosting and don’t like frosting that uses shortening and leaves an after-taste. Thank you so much for sharing!!!
I found this frosting to be way too runny. I only put in a tiny bit of cream, but there was NO WAY I could pipe it. I used it as a crumb layer on the cake I am frosting, then popped it in the freezer till I need it next week. I am hoping that the freezing process will firm it up. I refrigerated the remaining frosting, but have little hope, won;t it just get runny again if I trot the cake and leave it out for a couple of hours?
I wondered if anyone knows how many mini cup cakes this recipe will frost? I am making about 200 and trying to figure out how many batches of frosting I am going to need.
Hi! Thank you for the recipe. My question is, will this frosting be stiff enough to make rosettes on the sides of a cake? Thanks
I am defiantly a novice when it comes to making cupcakes.. your vanilla cupcake recipe was the easiest and tastiest by far, using oil worked a treat.
I am having difficulty with making any frosting though, not sure what i do that makes the mixture to runny to pipe.
I tried your vanilla cream cheese frosting which tasted amazing though i couldn’t pipe as a nice fluffy frost on top of the cupcake as it was to runny and i had heaps left over.. could you give me some additional hints as I thought i followed the recipe very closely. did i mix for to long the butter? or put to much cream cheese in that may have made it runny? I used a electric hand held mixer so maybe that was the problem?
What do you think?
ooh noo! I can’t wait to go home and try it hmmm yummyyyy
This looks yummy! I want to make some cupcakes for my niece’s birthday party, and I was wondering if i could add coloring? Would it affect the consistency? Thanks for posting!
Can the Cream cheese be substituted or made at home?