"Just Right" Cream Cheese Icing

Every cream cheese icing I tried seemed off…either too creamy, not cream-cheesy enough, too sweet, or too heavy. After many tries and a little tweaking, I think I’ve got it! Will spread on 24 cupcakes or do 18 1M piping swirls.

Ingredients

  • 1 Stick of Butter
  • 1.5 Blocks of Cream Cheese (12oz.)
  • 2 to 3 Cups of Powdered Sugar (to taste)
  • 1.5 tsp. Vanilla

Instructions

  1. 1. Cream together butter and cream cheese.
    2. Add vanilla.
    3. Add 2 cups of powdered sugar. Taste. If you like it this cream-cheesy, leave it. Or, add 1/2 cup of powdered sugar until you achieve your desired sweetness.

Comments (21)

on

This is exacly what I was looking for, I am making cupcakes next week and wanted to be able to do nice icing swirls over them. thanks for sharing!

on

Sounds like a great recipe! Have you ever turned it into choc icing? If so, I wold love the recipe additions you used. Thank You

on

Hi, I am new to this decorating thing. Can you tell me if this recipe is thick enough to hold a shape for a border? And is it hard to spread it smoothly? I assume you can't use the buttercream method and smooth it after it is refrigerated because it doesn't crust, is that right? Will it keep for a day or two on a cake in the fridge? Oh dear, sorry about the bombardment of questions!

Thanks!

on

this may be a dumb question... but is cream cheese icing a good or bad choice under fondant??? seems like i made cream cheese icing before and it was so soft it slid off.. maybe i made it wrong.. any suggestions.. im bored with buttercream

on

That is a good question. I'm going to try to cover a microphone cake with it today. This is my first time using creamcheese and fondant on a cake.

on

I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I have used cream cheese frosting under icing with no problems at all. I used a crusting cream cheese.

on

I LOVE this recipe!! Soooo good! For those of you not sure about using this under fondant, I can tell you what I do - I use this as the filling for my cake (carrot) and then I use white chocolate ganache under the fondant. White chocolate goes very well with both this icing and carrot cake. Tastes great!!

on

Another option for using cream cheese frosting under fondant is to add melted white chocolate right into the frosting. I do this for almost all of my cakes because the white chocolate cream cheese frosting is my most requested. Once cooled it firms up the frosting so it holds up better as a filling and for any piping and doesnt slip and slide as much so it holds your fondant better. For this size recipe I would add 6-10 oz of melted white chocolate depending on how much of that white chocolate flavor you want. Just melt it and beat it well with the cream cheese and butter before adding the powdered sugar.

on

I just made this one and the crusting cream cheese icing. This one won hands down. It tastes great. Now, to bake a cake to put it on!!

on

It turned out great the first time I made it...I added a little coffee to it the next time, and it kicked it up a notch...thank you for sharing the recipe!!