The Best Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read my disclosure policy.
This is my family favorite BEST cream cheese frosting recipe! It goes great on Carrot Cake, Red Velvet Cake, and just about any other flavor cake or cupcake you can imagine. I’ve been making this cream cheese icing for years!
If I had things my way, every cake and every cupcake would be be buried beneath a mountain of cream cheese frosting.
Not buttercream — Never rarely buttercream — always and only cream cheese. For someone with such a rampant sweet tooth, it’s alarming the number of times I’ve turned down a slice of cake or a sky-high frosted cupcake because the buttercream just makes my teeth hurt (OK full disclosure I have a buttercream recipe coming up on the blog next month, and it’s delicious, but cream cheese frosting will always win over my heart, even over my favorite chocolate frosting).
While buttercream frostings are usually too sweet, cream cheese frosting I could eat with a spoon, and this recipe is every bit as versatile as buttercream — it’s sturdy, pipe-able, can be dyed, and, most importantly, it’s delicious.
Tips for Making Cream Cheese Icing:
- Make sure that you are using full-fat brick cream cheese, not low fat or spreadable cream cheese (which is usually sold in a tub rather than in brick form).
- I always like to use unsalted butter and add a dash of salt so that I have complete control over the flavor of the frosting. However, if you only have salted butter on hand then just omit the salt called for in the recipe.
- Make sure you allow your cream cheese and your butter to soften before making your frosting! Softening the butter and cream cheese ensure that your ingredients will combine well and be lump free.
- If you intend to pipe your frosting, I recommend sifting your powdered sugar before mixing it into your butter/cream cheese mixture, as small lumps of sugar can clog up your piping tips, especially if you’re using a smaller tip.
Can cream cheese frosting be used for piping?
- Yes! Especially with this recipe because it is nice and thick. Now, this frosting (as with most) is prone to melting in hot weather, but it pipes nicely and as you can see in the photos it holds its shape neatly as well.
How do I make my cream cheese frosting thicker?
- What I love about this recipe is that it already makes a nice thick frosting, but if needed you can add more powdered sugar to make your cream cheese frosting even thicker. I recommend adding about 2 Tablespoons at a time until the desired thickness is reached. Alternatively you can add cornstarch… see more on that below.
Can I add cornstarch to my cream cheese frosting?
- Yup! While this recipe does not call for it, if you need a particularly stiff frosting or are looking to make your frosting thicker without making it sweeter, you can add cornstarch (in fact, I use this technique for my carrot cake cookies). I don’t recommend adding more than a few Tablespoons, so start with just one Tablespoon at a time until desired thickness is reached.
Alright, while (in my humble opinion) cream cheese frosting goes great with everything, there are certain cakes and cupcakes that complement it particularly well. Wednesday I’ll be sharing one of my favorite cupcakes with you — the exact cupcakes seen in the photos above.
Can you guess what flavor they are???
How to Make Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened (113g)
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened (brick-style, not spreadable) (226g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 cups powdered sugar*, (500g)
Instructions
- Combine butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer (or you may use an electric mixer) and beat until creamy, well-combined, and lump-free.
- Add vanilla extract and salt and stir well to combine.
- With mixer on low, gradually add powdered sugar until completely combined.
- Use to frost completely cooled cake or cupcakes.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!
So very good. The only recepie I use.
Thanks so much, Mary! We appreciate your review ❤️
I cut this recipe to half of the ingredients and used almond extract instead of vanilla. It was plenty for my 9×13 chocolate cake. Very good!
Sounds delicious, Rose! We’re glad you enjoyed it 😊
Can the frosting be refrigerated until the next day for piping?
Yes! Enjoy 🙂
Amazing frosting and easy to make! Perfect compliment to the pumpkin spice cake I made.
We love that combination, Candi! Enjoy 🥰
I’ve used this recipe successfully several times. Just out of curiosity, I added 1/4 cup of sour cream, a bit more powdered sugar, and it tasted fantastic to me!
I made this today and it came out amazing. Perfect balance between sweetness and cream cheese. I spread it on our cake but it had a great consistency to where you could pipe it if you needed to. Highly recommend.
Thanks so much for the review, Anahi! We’re so happy you loved it ❤️
This is my go-to recipe, always delicious, quick, and easy. It’s not too sweet so it balances out a sweet cake perfectly.
I love that you’re recipe has the cook mode on it. I hate when the screen goes dark.
I definitely recommend! I made some for cinnamon rolls this morning. It was good. Can you keep this frosting if you wanna use it again later? How long will it last?
Hi Bethany! It will last in the refrigerator, in a sealed container for about a week. I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
This was the highest rated recipe I found. When I read the reviews, I noted that several people didn’t have great results. I followed the recipe as written (EXCEPT I eyeballed the powdered sugar – I don’t believe I used the full amount stated. I tasted it when the texture was good for me and the flavor was perfect) using the correct ingredients- and high quality, full fat ingredients- and my results were perfect! It was delicious, everyone raved and wanted to eat the frosting with a spoon! The texture was perfect to me. If you’re going to make a recipe like my MIL and use fat-free cream cheese and margarine, well then yeah, it’s not going to turn out!
How can I make it sweeter?
Hi Brenda! You can add more powdered sugar. 🙂
Unlike some other posts I found this to be very pipeable and not to sweet! I did use scale and had no issues.
Out of curiosity how long is this good in fridge? Can I freeze?
Hi Amy! I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much! It should keep up to a week in the refrigerator, wrapped tightly. You can freeze it if need be. 🙂
I was wondering about freezing it!!! THANKS. Also the cake is delicious!!!
It can be frozen as well. 🙂
Are you able to double this recipe?
Sure thing! 🙂
Definitely not for decorating, tried on cupcakes. Used the scale, but it doesn’t keep the shape
I’m so sorry this happened, Regina! Did you make any substitutions? Is it really warm where you are? Most of the time if it’s too soft a little bit more powdered sugar will help it firm up a bit. I hope this helps. 🙂
Hi, how long can this be left out?
Hi Paula! It really depends on the temperature/humidity of your location. Since it is made with cream cheese I generally don’t recommend more than a few hours.
Hi. I’ve enjoyed many of your recipes so looked forward to the Cream cheese frosting as well. But, I live in Spain and unfortunately full fat brick style cream cheese of any style is no longer available in supermarkets so I had no option but to use tub cream cheese. You can imagine it did not have the necessary consistency to nicely frost the carrot cake I had made for my daughters 45th birthday celebration. It oozed slowly but inexorably out and down from between the two layers even after being careful to not add too much frosting. HELP! How can I make a good, firm cream cheese frosting with tub cream cheese???
I am so sorry this happened. 🙁 Unfortunately I don’t have a good solution to fix it which is why I recommend the full fat cream cheese. The stuff in the tub just isn’t firm enough. I am going to try to look into it because you aren’t the only person with this problem. 🙁
I gave this recipe a try for a Thanksgiving potluck. The taste was great, not too sweet so that was good. I would not recommend for piping just icing. My poor cupcakes looked pitiful and that was after adding 5 tablespoons of cornstarch. I didn’t even take them to the potluck I was so embarrassed how they looked. I am known in the office for beautiful cupcakes, so these were definitely not up to par. Live and learn I say and cream cheese frosting is better left to a cake where you are just icing and not decorating. Just my opinion 🤷♀️. I couldn’t even get it to stand up to the swirl, like pictured . The family enjoyed them and loved the taste.
Hi Kara! This is very strange, this icing should pipe very well, I use it for decorating often. Did you use all of the sugar that was called for and did you use brick-style full-fat cream cheese? low-fat cream cheese or the kind sold in tubs could cause a frosting that is soft as you described.
The frosting came out perfectly on my cupcakes! Thank you for sharing this recipe!