Favorite Cream Cheese Frosting

Learn how to make sweet and tangy cream cheese frosting with this easy recipe. This favorite frosting is creamy and thick, holds its shape when piped, and tastes incredible on carrot cake, spice cake, and so much more. You only need 5 ingredients, but make sure you use a brick of cream cheese, not cream cheese spread.

Do you need that little something *extra* for your desserts?

And are you tired of vanilla buttercream all the time?

Cream cheese frosting is my #1 favorite frosting for cakes, cupcakes, quick breads, and more. In fact, it’s the most common frosting used in my kitchen. I use it on everything from spice cake and carrot cake cupcakes to banana cake, red velvet cake, pumpkin cake, and more.

It’s smooth, creamy, and spreads onto baked goods with ease. Its flavor is the perfect balance of sweet and tangy and you only need 5 ingredients total!

This Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting:

1. Isn’t as cloyingly sweet as buttercream
2. Is smooth as silk
3. Isn’t runny (thank goodness!)
4. Has a tangy, yet sweet flavor
5. Is my creamiest frosting ever
6. Can be piped with piping tips!

How to Prevent Runny Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream cheese frosting will be thin and runny if you’re not careful about the type of cream cheese you use. Make sure you use an 8 ounce (226g) brick of full-fat cream cheese, not low-fat cream cheese and not cream cheese spread sold in a tub. Save cream cheese spread for bagels and low fat cream cheese for cooking.

The #1 reason bakers end up with runny frosting is because they’re accidentally using cream cheese spread instead of a brick. There’s a HUGE difference! For the best, thickest, and most successful frosting, use the bricks of real cream cheese.

Only 5 Ingredients

• brick cream cheese
• butter
• confectioners’ sugar
• vanilla extract
• salt

You will want room temperature butter and room temperature cream cheese before beginning.

Can This Cream Cheese Frosting Be Piped?

Cream cheese frosting is difficult to pipe because it’s so creamy. However, I learned a little trick a few years ago and feel free to borrow it. Cream cheese frosting will hold its decorative piped shape if you refrigerate it prior to piping. Fit your piping bag with a piping tip, fill your bag with the frosting, then refrigerate it for 20-30 minutes before piping.

However, don’t expect it to be as sturdy as buttercream. Cream cheese isn’t super stable, so save intricate piped designs for vanilla buttercream. Instead, stick with a basic round tip.

Cream Cheese Frosting Flavors

Flavor spruces everything up, so feel free to have fun with this recipe. A dash of cinnamon (like the frosting on these banana cupcakes) or brown butter (like the brown butter cream cheese frosting on this banana layer cake and zucchini cake) are excellent, but chocolate cream cheese frosting might be my very favorite. You can even add some “strawberry dust” as shown in my strawberry cake.

Other flavor ideas:

• Pumpkin Spice: 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (depends how much spice flavor you want!)
• Lemon: 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• Chai Spice: 3/4 teaspoon chai spice mix (just like chai latte cupcakes)
• Coconut: 1 teaspoon coconut extract

Simply add these ingredients to the recipe below.

For something lighter and less sweet that still pipes amazingly well, I recommend my whipped frosting. It’s the same frosting we used on this cookies and cream cake with the addition of Oreos!

Uses for Cream Cheese Frosting

It tastes phenomenal with spiced cakes and cupcakes, but don’t limit yourself. This stuff is so versatile! Here’s plenty of recipe inspiration for your next batch:

• Spice Cake or Apple Cake
• Banana Bread
• Homemade Brownies
• Zucchini Bread or Zucchini Cake
• Banana Cake
• Carrot Cake Cupcakes
• Pumpkin Cupcakes
• Sugar Cookies
• Blueberry Cupcakes (pictured above)
• Pumpkin Cake (pictured above)

For taller layer cakes, I usually add a little milk, extra cream cheese, and extra confectioners’ sugar to produce more volume. My carrot cake and red velvet cake recipes show this higher ratio of frosting. And sometimes I add extra butter for a stronger, more buttercream-like frosting. My lemon cake and coconut cake show the buttercream variation.

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