The BEST Cream Cheese Frosting + Video
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The BEST Cream Cheese Frosting – thick, sturdy, and pipeable, plus not overly sweet!
Okay ya’ll! I’m serious when I say this is the BEST Cream Cheese Frosting recipe out there! I’ve tried so many kinds, and they work out okay, but I’ve always struggled with soft, stringy frosting. This cream cheese frosting is stiff, sturdy, pipe-able, spreadable, you name it! It’s not overly sweet like the other recipes either.
See the ripples in that frosting? Yep, that’s proof right there that it’s stiff enough to decorate with. The big difference between this recipe and all those other ones floating around the web, is that this recipe uses more butter and less powdered sugar.
This variation of more butter and less powdered sugar gives the cream cheese frosting a buttery, creamy texture, yet still has that tangy cream cheese flavor to it. Less powdered sugar helps it not be stringy, and the butter helps lighten and fluff up the frosting.
This is seriously my go-to cream cheese frosting recipe now. I will not use any other cream cheese frosting recipe in the future, so I am sharing this recipe, separately, in it’s own post, so you can refer to this post as often as I make this frosting in my culinary creations! Have you tried it this way yet? Make this ASAP!
More Cream Cheese Frosting Recipes:
- Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
- Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
- Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
- Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting
The BEST Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 8 ounces brick cream cheese, cold (I typically use Neufchatel cream cheese)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Place the cream cheese in a mixing bowl.
- Using a hand mixer, beat until smooth.
- Gradually add the butter 2 Tablespoons at a time, and continue beating until smooth and well blended.
- Add powdered sugar and vanilla all at once. Blend until combined and smooth. (Don't beat too long or the frosting will be too soft to pipe. If this happens, place the frosting in the refrigerator or freezer until it firms back up.) Use for any recipe that calls for cream cheese frosting.
Notes
*You can store this frosting either at room temperature (which is 70 degrees Fahrenheit) or in the refrigerator. Do not go back and forth storing from one to the other, for food safety reasons. Use your own judgement.
YIELD: 1 1/2 cups frosting, which will frost about 12-14 cupcakes
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 107Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 20mgSodium: 63mgCarbohydrates: 10gFiber: 0gSugar: 10gProtein: 1g
This data was provided and calculated by Nutritionix, and is an estimation only.
Recipe from Cookie Baker Lynn via TLC Parentables
Extra pictures and video added 4/1/17.
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Welcome!
Hi, I’m Amber! I am a culinary graduate and dessert lover! This is where I share my favorite sweet and savory recipes alongside my knowledge and skills as a culinary graduate. I hope you find something you like!
350 Comments on “The BEST Cream Cheese Frosting + Video”
Amber,
I want to start off by saying, that I NEVER leave comments on blog posts. I am a wife, mother, and crocheter, and I link up to A TON of blogs on a daily basis to help “satisfy my needs and wants”. However, nothing ever HITS HOME and “knocks my socks” off enough to even think about leaving a comment. So you know you either have done something really AWFUL, or REALLY GREAT, for me to be taking the time to write you.
Today is my husbands 39th birthday, and our 5-and-a-half-year-old decided this morning on the way out of the door to school that he HAD to make daddy cupcakes for his birthday and use his new cook tools that Santa brought him for Christmas (not sure if this was more of a good gesture for daddy, or for himself!). I have recently had to come out of work as a nurse (I had a stroke this past September, 3 months before my 25th birthday) so our 2 income household went to 1 overnight. I have done a lot of research on how to cut back on spending, especially when it comes to groceries. Of course, today was the day where cupcakes were NEEDED and there is $0.01 in my bank account and absolutely no cake mix or icing in the house (GO FIGURE!!). I took to Pintrest in a hurry and found a “from scratch” basic cake recipe (shew! I am SAVED, or so I thought.). No matter how cute this 5 year old is, cupcakes with NO icing just would not have cut it. So I took to Pintrest yet again, with the few ingredients I had on hand: enough cream cheese to make it to Rome and back . . . and that was it. Is it frowned upon to slap plain cream cheese on cupcakes?. . . no amount of red sugared sprinkles was going to make that okay. So, I started looking for cream cheese icing recipes. . . low and behold, I came across yours. . . So I dug through the couches in the house and “robbed” my child’s well funded piggy bank (still haven’t figured out where all of it came from!), ran to the dollar store and back home I was. . .
Now, let me say, that for the past 6 years, and a lot of baking under my belt, I have YET to find a cream cheese recipe I would feed to the dog, much less feed my family or guests. . . It was always either too sweet, too runny, too “cheesy”, nothing that I would make 2 times in a row. . . However, as your recipe sits in the kitchen aid, I am sitting here contemplating whether or not eating it with a spoon would be frowned upon, because my finger can not take much more “sticking and licking”.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for saving daddy’s birthday, and from the shaming and time out that was to come, had I NOT pulled this one out of the bag. You SAVED the birthday!!!
Hi Erin,
You scared me there for a minute! I was preparing myself for a rant, but I am SO HAPPY to read that you had a great experience and that you could have birthday cupcakes for your hubby! I totally get it when kids set their mind on having something, they’ve got to have it! 😉
Haha!!! Totally didn’t mean to scare you! My momma always taught me if I didn’t have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all!
Didn’t work for me. I used regular Philadelphia creamcheese and I followed the recipe step by step. It tastes really (I mean: really!) great but it’s way too runny. I used a stand mixer instead of the hand mixer. Could this be the reason I failed?
I have no idea why it would be runny. The only liquid is 1 tsp vanilla. The hand mixer does work much better for this recipe than a stand mixer. Did you use a whisk or paddle attachment? I honestly can’t think of any reason for it to be runny unless you added more powdered sugar than called for. That makes cream cheese frosting stringy and hard to work with. Sorry!
Amber, I’ve tried again with the paddle attachment (used whisk at the first attempt) with a little less sugar and it turned out great! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Oh good! Phew! I was so perplexed about what could have gone wrong the first time. Glad you got it to work out!
Does this harden at all
Hi Taylor, I’m not sure I understand your question. This is stiff enough to pipe and decorate things, are you having problems?
I am trying this looks great! I am doing some red velvet cupcakes. Do you know about how much frosting I need for 24 cupcakes.
I would definitely double this recipe. It depends on how high you pipe the frosting. If you like lots of frosting, triple this recipe, if you like a mild coating, doubling the recipe should be sufficient.
I need 24 cupcakes . Liz HEY Liz hey amber thanks these are great !
can this work with regular sugar instead of powdered?
Probably not. Powdered sugar is much lighter in texture and helps keep the frosting fluffy. If you used granulated (regular) sugar instead it would be dense and heavy and the sugar might not dissolve completely leaving you with a grainy frosting.
Hi there, Do you use clear or brown vanilla? I only have the brown one, will this make the icing a cream colour instead of nice and white? Thanks.
I totally use regular vanilla (brown) and it looks as white as the images show.
Would this work on cutout sugar cookies? I don’t like royal icing and i can never seem to find a good frosting for this type of cookie?
Hi Stacy,
I use this frosting for sugar cookies all the time like these Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies: https://www.dessertnowdinnerlater.com/2014/10/cinnamon-roll-sugar-cookies/
I hate buttercream, so I always use Cream Cheese Frosting.
Hi there, has anyone made this and been able to pipe with it? As in make swirls on top of cupcakes that actually look like swirls, not a gloomy mess like I always seem to end up with… I have been searching for years it seems for a pipeable cream cheese frosting and every recipe I have tried is far too runny – does anyone know how well this pipes or do you have a photo?
Can’t wait to try this out, thank you so much for sharing this recipe! x
I have used this frosting to pipe in or on top of cookies so far and it really SO amazing! Here is a link to show the piped frosting I did for some sandwich cookies, (I have some photos of it piped before I sandwiched them): https://www.dessertnowdinnerlater.com/2014/03/carrot-cake-whoopie-pies/
Or you can check out another cookie I used it to pipe on top of in my instagram post.
This is my go to recipe for all my cream cheese frosting and filling needs! It pipes beautifully ❤️
I’m so glad to hear that Shana!
Does the cake or cupcakes need to
Be refrigerated when they have cream cheese frosting on them? Thanks!
Cream cheese frosting is one of those things that can be either or but not both. Once you make it, you either leave it at room temperature or keep it refrigerated. It’s when you move it back and forth from room temperature to a cold refrigerator that it might not be safe to eat anymore. I have mostly kept this frosting at room temperature because I put it in cookies, cakes, or on cinnamon rolls.
Thanks for sharing with all of us. I plan on making a butter pecan layer cake using two 8 or 9 inch pans. Will this make enough frosting? I live in Philly so I automatically love cream cheese!
That sounds like a great idea! I would double the recipe for 3 cups of frosting especially since it’s a layered cake.