Name: Easy Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: american
Ingredients: ½ cup or 115g unsalted butter, softened; 8 ounces or 225g cream cheese, softened; 4 cups or 400g sifted powdered sugar; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Easy Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting, a fluffy creamy basic frosting recipe, great for cakes and cupcakes. A great classic recipe using simple ingredients. It's our best ever frosting recipe of all time!

Cake frosting recipes can vary so much from one person to another, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. So finding a reliable go-to recipe can often be difficult.

We've decided to share with you our classic cream cheese frosting recipe.

It's a very easy recipe, uses basic ingredients, and a basic method of creaming everything together, so you end up with a smooth, light, and fluffy frosting, ideal for piping onto cupcakes, or spreading in between two cakes to make a sandwich and then frosting on the outside surfaces too.

This recipe has got to be the easiest and best ever! Stick to the quantities given for cream cheese and butter, and you will have perfect cream cheese frosting every time!.

It's coming up to the holiday season when many of you may be thinking of doing some baking recipes, or perhaps you have a birthday or celebration cake you'd like to make for a loved one.

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Well, look no further for a reliable frosting recipe, because this will be a keeper recipe for you!

So let's get straight to the recipe and see how we make this delicious creamy frosting!

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11) Easy Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

12) Easy Cake recipes

Prep Time

10 minutes

Yield

2 cups

Ingredients

unsalted butter, softened
cream cheese, softened
sifted powdered sugar
vanilla extract

See recipe card below for quantities.

Instructions

In a large bowl, beat softened butter and softened cream cheese until well blended and no clumps.

Easy Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting, whisking until smooth — Make sure there are no lumps!

Slowly add 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time, then add vanilla extract and beat until creamy.

Hint: Frosting can be refrigerated and piped before serving.

Substitutions

Vanilla Extract - you can swap the vanilla for any other flavoring, just make sure you stick to the same quantity
Food Coloring- You can add a few drops of food coloring to the frosting, we suggest adding a couple of drops at a time, beat and combine and add more if needed to get the color you want.
Adding Different Ingredients - You can add coffee extract, orange, lime or lemon zest to the frosting, desiccated coconut, finely chopped nuts, or anything else which is fine in order to pass through a piping nozzle if you are piping the frosting.

Variations

Sweetness - This frosting is very sweet, so if you do not have a particularly sweet tooth, you can either reduce the sugar content in your cake, or reduce the powdered sugar quantity in this recipe by a third, so it would be 3 cups or 300g of powdered sugar.
Piping - If you wish to pipe the frosting, we suggest a 1A size piping nozzle
Kid friendly - add sprinkles over the top of the frosting to make it fun for the kiddies

See this classic coffee walnut cake on my website! We used a coffee buttercream frosting, but you can also swap for a cream cheese frosting!

Equipment

An electric handheld mixer is the easiest piece of equipment to use. It's a lot faster than using a manual whisk, and less effort! You can also use a stand mixer if you have one.

We used this Kitchenaid Stand Mixer (affiliate link)

Storage

How long does cream cheese frosting last?

Cream cheese frosting, alone or on cake or cupcakes, can sit at a cool room temperature for up to 8 hours before it should be refrigerated.

The frosting can be made and transferred to an airtight container and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Top tips

How do you get cream cheese frosting to set?

How do you get cream cheese frosting to thicken? The best way to thicken cream cheese frosting is to refrigerate it for 5-10 minutes. As the butter cools, it will firm up.

Does cream cheese frosting melt?

Once your powdered sugar is combined with the butter and cream cheese, this will all bind together. The consistency is quite thick, and therefore makes it more stable than say a whipped cream frosting, so it will stay on your cake and not melt all over it.

however, if you do live in a particularly hot country, or your kitchen is very hot, we advise putting the frosting and /or cake if it's been frosted, in the refrigerator to keep cool.

Recipe Card

Yield: 2 cups