Name: Cream cheese Frosting
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature (and cut into small cubes); ½ cup unsalted butter (at room temperature, and cut into small cubes (1 stick)); 1 cup powdered sugar; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

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Cream Cheese Frosting

Sweet and tangy, this quick and easy-to-make Classic Cream Cheese Frosting comes together with just four basic ingredients, and it’s delicious on all kinds of sweet treats.

This is a staple recipe; one that I think everyone should have. It’s a go to recipe for all kinds of desserts, complementing, and maybe even making some things better!

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It’s fluffy, stable, creamy, and tangy. And, it’s perfect for piping onto cupcakes and for decorating cakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting is probably the best part of any cake, cupcake, or cookie as far as I’m concerned.

Cream cheese frosting is my favorite. I love it, and you’ve seen me use it on my Pumpkin Spice Cake with Apple Butter Cream Cheese Frosting and on my Zucchini Cookies.

Adjusting the basic recipe

Flavoring add-ins

Cream Cheese Frosting doesn’t need any other flavors, but sometimes it’s fun to mix it up a bit. You can also customize the flavoring of your cream cheese frosting.

I added apple butter to mine in that Pumpkin Spice Cake. You could add caramel. Or, even try a little extract like lemon, eggnog, or peppermint.

Just about any jam could be added to cream cheese frosting, like blueberry jam or strawberry jam.

Try making your frosting flavored by adding chocolate or cocoa, strawberries, caramel, lemon juice or lemon extract, maple syrup, coconut and coconut extract, orange, crushed Oreos, blueberries, pineapple, oh the options are almost endless.

Sweetness level

Adjust the sweetness of the frosting, if you like, by increasing or decreasing the powdered sugar.

Thick or thin

If you want a cream cheese icing drizzle, thin the recipe with some milk or cream until you have a thick syrup-like consistency.

Lighter and fluffy frosting

The longer you whip the frosting, the lighter and fluffier it will become. It will also lighten in color.

Thicker frosting

Add more powdered sugar to make the frosting thicker. This will make the icing sweeter as well. You can also add meringue powder or cornstarch to thicken the frosting.

Recipe tips

Use full fat cream cheese rather than low fat. The fat in the cream cheese adds flavor and richness to the frosting.

Refrigerate the frosting

Frost the cake or cookies, then store them in the fridge. Also, store any leftover frosting in the fridge. For best flavor, allow the frosted dessert to come to room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving.

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