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
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Shiv
The best cream cheese frosting I have ever tasted! Thank you!,
Bandi
What could you add and how much to make this peanut butter icing ? I would like to pipe on chocolate peanut butter brownies
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Brandi! This should work just fine. You can add peanut butter to taste 🙂
Tori
made this frosting by request of a friend for her bday cake, gluten free yellow cake with seedless blackberry preserves between layers & it was perfect! spread so nicely and held on even when my kitchen a warmer than I would have wanted for spreading frosting. Saving for any future use!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Yum! We are so happy it was a hit, Tori 🩷
Erica D.
Question with some recipes, why use unsalted butter then add salt to the recipe? Why not use salted butter? Just wondering, thanks!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Erica! Using unsalted butter and adding salt separately allows you to more accurately control the salt level of the recipe. We have a whole post on salted or unsalted butter that discusses this, if you want to read more 😊
Julie Bartlett
When I read that you could eat cream cheese frosting with a spoon I thought how repulsive, eating frosting alone. OMGosh, this is the best frosting I have ever tasted and I ate quite a bit with a spoon! Its so light, fluffy, and not too sweet. I’ll never buy pre-made cream cheese frosting again. This is my go to frosting from here on out.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
So glad you liked it, Julie! Our peanut butter frosting is one of our other “by the spoonful” favorites 😉
Bea
I can’t believe how easy and great tasting this cream cheese frosting. For Christmas 2024, I made cherry cupcakes and topped them with this frosting using 1 tsp of cherry flavoring with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and OMG was this the best ever! You definitely can eat this frosting by the spoonful!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
That sounds amazing Bea! Thanks for the review 🥰
Bella
Oh my so good. Thank you so much!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you enjoyed it, Bella!
Emily
Do yourself a favor, and taste the frosting after every cup you add. Four cups of powdered sugar is WAY too much! Second time around it tasted just right with only 2.
Sharon K Davie
I wanted to cinnamon into this cream cheese frosting. how would you do it?
Sam
Hi Sharon! You could just stir a little bit in to taste. 🙂
Anne Santer
I am using your cheese frosting on my pavlova. Can I refrigerate the whole pavlova.
Sam
Hi Anne! I would probably recommend waiting to top the pavlova with the frosting until ready to serve.
Ruth
How long will this Icing last in the fridge. I want to do the Icing ahead of time but not going to decorate my cake until Saturday and today is Tuesday.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Ruth! So sorry for the delay. We’d say it will last for up to a week in the fridge 😊
Ruth
I served 2 cakes with this Icing at 2 different events and everyone raved about it! definitely a keeper recipe!
Karen Sloan
I headed to Comments to write, “This IS the best cream cheese frosting I’ve ever tried,” but I noticed Terry among others had beaten me to it. This recipe has the flavor of cream cheese without being overwhelming, and the texture is closer to a buttercream frosting than often-stiff cream cheese recipes. This wll definitely be my go-to from now on.
Terry
This is the best recipe! I always use it on my carrot cake. It gets lots of compliments.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy it’s a hit, Terry! 🥰
Debbie
Thus has been the recipe ive always used. I just couldn’t remember the amount if powered sugar. Thank you. for post it.
Rose Mohyla
I just made this for the first time, and it is the best Cream Cheese frosting I ever had!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We are so happy you liked it, Rose! 😊
Diana Davis
I use this recipe every time it’s the best
Kate Hightshoe-Lambert
Super easy, tastes amazing, very fluffy and creamy, easy to fix if too thin or too thick, very few ingredients and could probably do well even with just hand powered stirring if you didn’t have access to an electric mixer of some kind.
Zchonie Miller
i just used your recipe for a pan of cinnamon rolls, it is absolutely the very best recipe I’ve ever used, I’ll keep using it for all my frosting uses. thank you for posting it.
Marzy
I used half of the amount of sugar (2 cups) and it came out great. Used a little corn starch to thicken