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:
- Isn’t as cloyingly sweet as buttercream
- Is smooth as silk
- Isn’t runny (thank goodness!)
- Has a tangy, yet sweet flavor
- Is my creamiest frosting ever
- 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 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.
Print
Favorite Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: about 3 cups
- Category: Frosting
- Method: Mixing
- Cuisine: American
Description
Homemade cream cheese frosting is super creamy, soft, smooth, and tangy. It’s so easy to make and the uses are endless!
Ingredients
- 8 ounces (226g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3 cups (360g) confectioners’ sugar, plus an extra 1/4 cup (30g) if needed
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together on high speed until smooth and creamy. Add 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, the vanilla, and salt. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then switch to high speed and beat for 2 minutes. If you want the frosting a little thicker, add the extra 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar (I add it).
- Cover and store leftover frosting for up to 5 days in the refrigerator or up to 3 months in the freezer. After freezing, thaw in the refrigerator then beat the frosting for a few seconds so it’s creamy again.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand)
- Quantity: This recipe is enough to frost 12-18 cupcakes or one 9×13 quarter sheet cake. 1.5x the recipe for a double layer cake or add extra cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar, and a splash of milk or cream as shown in my carrot cake and red velvet cake recipes. (Doubling the recipe would be far too much.)
- Chocolate: Here is my chocolate cream cheese frosting recipe.
I agree with the lesser amount of sugar. Most recipes call for 4 cups. Can barely taste the cream cheese. I prefer going with 3.
Im so inspired
I’m adding chocolate cream cheese frosting to the birthday cake
Thank you
Hi team! Amazing receipes. We live in Europe where we cannot find blocks of cream cheese. Only the tub versions.
How to we ‘convert’ from the Tubs to Blocks to achieve the same consistency for our red velvet cake frosting?
Hi Joshua, yes, we know this is an issue and it’s very frustrating! Look for a soft white cheese with around 33% fat content. Not sure how easy it is to get where you are, but in some parts of Europe you can find Philadelphia cream cheese in the tub. Some readers have reported that they strain off excess liquid from the tub type of cream cheese before using. If you try it, please let us know how it turns out!
Could I use this recipe to fill a cake roll
Definitely! We use cream cheese frosting in our red velvet cake roll recipe.
This is a darn good recipe ….Thanks.
But I disagree somewhat on only using brick cream cheese. I had a pound of ‘spreadable’ cream cheese in the bottom of a 3 lb container. I didn’t want to waste it so I used it for this icing and it came out great….not runny or thin. I made graham cracker cookies with it and they are great. I keep them in the fridge anyway.
so goododododo!
Delicious. Great Texture
I made this frosting a long time ago for my carrot cupcakes, it was delicious! I want to use the same recipe to cover a white chocolate cake for my daughter’s birthday. I am hoping for a smooth finish that I can decorate later with piped buttercream. Would it work?
Hi Neha, we can’t see why not! So glad you enjoyed this one.
This recipe works far better than my old one!!!
The perfect cream cheese frosting! Not too sweet but sweet enough.
OMG! This icing tastes soooo good! Just like nothin bunt cakes cream cheese frosting!
I made this icing for my 14th birthday cake and it looks amazing and tastes amazing too!
Best cream cheese frosting recipe
I use this recipe multiple times a year, and it’s the BEST!!
It tastes soooo good! ❤️
Tasty! Love this with the pistachio cupcakes. Just don’t expect to get pretty designs with it- it’s a taster, not a looker. But other than that it’s perfect!
Dear Sally,
There is no brick of full fat cream cheese on the market here /Europe/.
I only can use original Philadelphia cream cheese but the frosting becomes kind of a runny.
Please advise if I can still use Philadelphia, but maybe in a different proportion for more thickness.
Hi P.Sims, In the U.S. block cream cheese is very different than the tubs and is the only cream cheese that will work for frosting. We have been told by readers outside the U.S. that cream cheese in a tub is different from ours and can work, but we have not tested it. We are unsure of the different proportions needed, but more sugar will thicken the frosting.
I live in Europe too and we definitely have brick cream cheese. However I don’t know if they sell it in all countries, but I assume they do. It’s called MonChou. I’ll add a link but it’s in Dutch but then you get an idea. I’ve used this many times for frostings and it’s absolutely perfect. And so is this recipe! Love it!
Tip I learned for using the soft cream cheese is to use a kitchen towel or something similar to squeeze as much liquid as I can possibly get out and then use for frosting. Not the exact texture as block cheese but gets rid of that little extra moisture. Works for me!!!
I read this tip as well and can vouch for this! It has also really helped me a lot with my frosting. I highly recommend draining as much liquid as you possibly can from cream cheese in the tub.
Perfect every time! Thank you for such an easy to follow and delicious recipe.