Whip up this 3 ingredient cream cheese frosting in just a few minutes for the perfect sweet, slightly tangy icing for your favorite cake or cupcakes (pretty great on cinnamon rolls too...).
*This post contains some affiliate links that as an Amazon Associate pay me a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for helping keep me in flour and sugar. See my disclosure policy here.
This is my dad’s favorite frosting. It’s the frosting I first learned to make. I didn’t even know about buttercream until I was nearly an adult. This is the perfect frosting to slather onto a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls or a pan of brownies. This isn’t frosting to try and pipe. It’s soft. It stays soft. That’s it’s purpose. If you’re looking for a cream cheese icing to pipe-check out cream cheese buttercream.
Let’s talk ingredients?
- Cream cheese-obviously. Let it soften on the counter for 1/2 hour before you beat it. You’ll be glad you did.
- Powdered Sugar-mixes in perfect with the cream cheese-no grit
- Vanilla Extract-for a flavor boost. Can also use vanilla bean paste if you like the flecks of vanilla.
- Water-to thin it out if you need to. You can also use milk if desired but I don’t really notice a taste difference and water is cheaper and easier. Just add one teaspoon at a time. Easy to thin frosting, harder to thicken.
Variations:
Sometimes you want to fancy up your frosting. Here are some of my favorite variations:
- Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting-use lemon extract in place of the vanilla extract and add in 1 lemon’s worth of zest
- Maple Cream Cheese Frosting-add in 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup. Reduce or eliminate water
- Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting-add in 3/4 cup freeze dried strawberries, ground into a powder with your food processor (we use ground up freeze dried strawberries for concentrated strawberry flavor without the addition of extra water)
- Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting-add in 3/4 cup cocoa powder when mixing
Recipes that shine with cream cheese frosting:
IMO, pretty much any recipe where you don’t need to pipe the frosting can benefit from cream cheese frosting but these really hit home:
- Cinnamon Rolls-the cream cheese adds some extra zing you didn’t know you needed
- Applesauce cake-pour the batter into a greased 9*13 pan instead of cupcakes and you have the perfect easy fall grandma cake
- Brownies-slather it on and add on some fresh strawberries
- Soft Sour Cream Cookies-these cookies were made for a dollop of cream cheese frosting and a liberal amount of seasonal sprinkles
- Carrot Cake Cookies-all the carrot cake goodness bundled into a cookie
Ways to Mess Up Your Cream Cheese Frosting:
When you have been making this frosting as long as I have, mistakes have been made. Here are some common ones and how we can avoid it in the future.
- Lumpy cream cheese-you have to let your cream cheese warm up a bit or she will be chunky. If you forgot to get it out to warm up, unwrap it, put it on a plate and microwave it for 10 SECONDS ONLY. Should be soft enough to beat nicelyj
- Using granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar-yep-did that once. There’s no saving her. You just gotta eat gritty cream cheese frosting and chalk it up to a learning experience. Still tastes good though…
- Adding too much water and then adding in too much powdered sugar to thicken-it’s a ratio here. So if you add in more sugar, you have to add in more cream cheese or your frosting will be too sweet and the wrong consistency.
Do I have to Refrigerate My Cream Cheese Frosting?
Yes, you should. You really shouldn’t leave your cream cheese frosting out for more than a couple hours. The upside of this frosting being a super soft frosting, is that it doesn’t get hard in the refrigerator like buttercream.
Easy Cream Cheese Frosting
Equipment
- 1 Mixer
Ingredients
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup water to thin frosting if needed
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add your block of cream cheese. Mix until smooth.
- Add in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and mix to combine
- Slowly add in powdered sugar and mix to combine.
- If frosting is too thick, add in water 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.
Notes
Did you make this recipe? Tag me @bakincareofbusiness on Instagram so I can see what you made!
Happy Baking!
