This homemade Cream Cheese Frosting is fluffy and pipes beautifully. We’re sharing our tips for a perfectly thick and whipped frosting. Watch the video tutorial and see how easy it is.
We love this frosting on cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. It’s especially good on Red Velvet Cake, Carrot Cake Cupcakes, and Pumpkin Cake. If you’ve been looking for that perfect and versatile frosting recipe, this is a must-try!
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Cream Cheese Frosting Video
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The Best Cream Cheese Frosting
Hands down, this is our favorite cream cheese icing. Here’s why this will become your go-to recipe:
- Texture – it’s thick enough to pipe onto a cake or cupcakes and isn’t runny like many cream cheese-based frostings tend to be.
- Sweetness – this has just the right amount of sugar and isn’t overly sweet.
- Flavor – the proportion of butter and cream cheese is balanced and it doesn’t taste too much like cream cheese. The vanilla and salt also add great flavor.
- Freezer-friendly – you can make it ahead and freeze or even pipe it onto cakes and cupcakes and freeze an entire dessert (see make-ahead instructions below)
Ingredients
The key to making great cream cheese frosting is in making sure your butter and cream cheese aren’t overly softened.
- Unsalted butter – use an inexpensive, light-colored butter for a lighter-colored frosting.
- Cream cheese – 8oz adds just enough cream cheese flavor and lightens up the frosting.
- Powdered sugar – sweetens up the frosting without being too sweet like many storebought frostings, but you can add more if you prefer.
- Vanilla extract – use a real extract or homemade vanilla for the best taste.
- Fine Sea Salt – a little goes a long way to balance the flavor.
The Best Cream Cheese for Frosting
Make sure to use full-fat, block-style cream cheese. Avoid cream cheese sold in a tub as those can make frosting runny and are intended to be used for spreads rather than frosting.
How long to soften butter and cream cheese? Keep at room temperature (70˚F room) for about 1 1/2 hours, or until you can indent the butter with your fingertip. It should feel cool to the touch and should not feel too soft or squishy.
How to Make Cream Cheese Frosting
- Beat butter with an electric hand mixer until smooth and creamy then beat on high speed for 1 minute until lightened in color.
- Beat in cream cheese pieces just until combined, scraping down the bowl.
- Add vanilla and salt and beat to combine.
- Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time and mix at low speed until incorporated. Increase to high speed and beat another 2-3 minutes until whipped, thick and spreadable, scraping down the bowl a couple of times to ensure everything is really well blended.
Common Questions
Yes, since it has cream cheese and is dairy-based, it should be refrigerated. See instructions for refrigerating and freezing in the “Make-ahead” section below.
Add more powdered sugar if an even thicker frosting is desired.
Yes, it is a sturdy frosting and perfect for cookies. You can even use gel food coloring at the end to tint the frosting.
It can sit out at room temperature for 6 hours. In a warmer or more humid climate, refrigerate until ready to serve.
Yes, use a spatula to fold in a gel food coloring to the finished frosting to reach the desired color. Gel colors are less likely to thin your frosting.
We love it with butter because it is thicker and easier to pipe and decorate with. It also keeps really well in the refrigerator when using butter.
Use Cream Cheese Frosting for
We love to serve this recipe for cream cheese frosting on all kinds of desserts. These pair really well with the balanced sweetness of this frosting.
- Red Velvet Cake
- Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Strawberry Sponge Cake
- Sugar Cookies
- Fudgy Brownies
- Vanilla Cupcakes
I hope this becomes your go-to Cream Cheese Frosting recipe. The texture is impressive, it pipes beautifully, and best of all, it freezes and keeps really well.
Make-Ahead
- To Refrigerate: Cover frosting and store in the refrigerator for 3-4 days or until ready to use. To use, let sit at room temperature for about 1 hour or just until spreadable or pipeable. If you frost and refrigerate your cake, let it soften at room temperature for 1-2 hours before serving.
- Freezing: Transfer frosting to a freezer-safe zip bag and shape it into an even thickness in the bag. Freeze flat for 1 month. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight then keep at room temperature for 30-60 minutes just until spreadable. You can pipe the frosting over cakes and cupcakes then just thaw the dessert in the fridge overnight before serving.
More Frosting Recipes
These frosting recipes every baker should have in their collection. You will use these again and again.
- Vanilla Buttercream – classic American buttercream
- Chocolate Buttercream – richly chocolatey
- Cupcake Frosting – light, airy and fluffy
- Swiss Meringue Buttercream – wedding cake worthy
- Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting – silky smooth
- Chocolate Ganache – perfect for glazing or frosting
- Homemade Whipped Cream – 3 ingredients
Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened and cut into pieces
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp salt
Instructions
- Place butter into a large mixing bowl. With an electric mixer, beat butter until smooth and creamy then beat on high speed 1 minute until lightened in color.
- Beat in softened cream cheese, just until combined, scraping down the bowl.
- Beat in vanilla and salt until incorporated.
- Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time and mix on low speed until incorporated. Once all the powdered sugar is in, Increase to high speed and beat another 2-3 minutes until whipped, thick and spreadable, scraping down the bowl a couple of times to ensure everything is really well blended.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
Hi Natasha!
Your recipes are definitely my go to!
Anxious to try your pumpkin cupcakes.. wondering though which frosting to try as you have a few cream cheese frostings on your site. My family isn’t a huge cream cheese fan. So which one your cream cheese frostings isn’t too ‘cream cheesy’?
Thx!
Hi Kim, I would go with this cream cheese frosting since it has a good proportion of butter to cream cheese and it won’t taste too much like cream cheese.
Perfect!
Thank you for responding.
Take care .. 😊
You’re welcome, Kim!
This frosting recipe is so good. Tastes divine! Although, my frosting split. I probably over mixed it. Besides that, it tastes so great
Hi Esther, that could’ve been the case but good to know that you liked the taste!
Hi Natasha, I’m wondering if I could use salted butter for this frosting?
Hi Anusha, we prefer it with unsalted butter. Unsalted butter is light-colored butter for a lighter-colored frosting. Also, if using salted butter you may want to add less salt to the recipe.
I really love your recipes. Also enjoy watching the videos.
Recipe rating 95%.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying my recipes and Videos, Margaret!!
Hi Natasha, love your recipes.
For the red velvet cake can I use apple cider vinegar because I can’t find distilled vinegar.
Thank you.
Hi Bebi, I haven’t tried it with apple cider vinegar to advise on the outcome. I can’t say it will work the same.
Hi, Can i used Philadelphia Cream cheese for this recipe pls?
Thanks. Love all your recipe ☺
Hi Valerie! That should work great!
This is delicious but I tried it twice and in the beginning it was perfect but not long after I’m done beating it would start to almost melt and texture is almost like curdled. When I immediately spread on the cake it won’t hold and would start to be watery. I followed exactly the steps and tips. I am in Canada (not hot). I waited till it hardens on the cake in the fridge before I smoothen and put another layer. I follow lots of your recipe but this was a fail for me. I wonder why? Again it was delicious. Thank you.
Hi Jeannie, it sounds like the frosting probably got too soft. Make sure when softening that you leave cream cheese out for about 1 1/2 hours and not longer at room temperature. If the cream cheese or butter are too soft, it will affect the texture. Also, make sure to use block-style cream cheese.
In Germany we don’t have cream cheese in blocks, so ours is softer and not that dry or stiff. That’ s why we have to change the procedure to get a good frosting. First we mix room-temperatured butter with icing sugar until all sugar is very well combined. And only then we add cold cream cheese and we get a perfect stiff frosting. Maybe, it is a help if you have this problem of cream cheese too
You are right on with your comment. My cream cheese frosting, using Natasha’s recipe, always came out soupy until I started mixing the icing sugar with the butter before adding the cream cheese. Makes sense because butter has more moisture and once the icing sugar wraps around the butter, the cream cheese won’t melt into it. It still comes out beautiful and creamy, just not soupy! Also I also add cream cheese right out of the refrigerator. I could never pipe my cream cheese icing until I learned this. I wish Natasha would let people know too.
This should be illegal! So good! I followed your instructions (butter at room temp 2 hrs and did the poke test) the first time and icing was lumpy. The second time the butter was still not smooth when I was beating it so popped it into microwave for 20 sec. That did the trick! I wonder if our butter in Canada is made different and that’s the reason or if our house is too cool lol. Anyways I made notes for next time as this is a great recipe for cream cheese icing!
That could be the case but I’m glad you were able to make it work and you enjoyed it!
Thank you for this great advise. I added the cream cheese right out of the fridge after I had combined the butter and icing sugar. I added the cream cheese in about 1/4 cup at a time ( approximately). Turned out perfect. Wonderful recipe
Hi Ms. Natasha! Can i reduce the number of cups of powdered sugar?
Thank you for this recipe, may family loves cream cheese, and i want to try this frosting in my Chiffon Cake.
More power!
Hi Pam, I honestly haven’t tried that yet to advise. If you do an experiment, please share with us how it goes.
Excellent recipe – as usual!! Not too sweet, but perfectly balanced.
I made the cream cheese frosting from your carrot cake recipe yesterday. Turns out I need more frosting! (We may have eaten a little too much while waiting for the cake to cool)
I’m just wondering – when you use a hand mixer, is it ok to use my stand mixer? I’m just wondering. Thanks again!
Hi Lilli, it’s totally ok to use a stand mixer. That would work great as well. I”m so glad you loved the recipe.
THIS WAS THE BEST FROSTING RECIPE I’VE EVER USED!!! It’s soft and fluffy but maintains its shape. In addition, it’s not overly sweet cuz the cream cheese cuts the sweetness by a bit. This frosting is BUSSIN. <3
Love it! Thank you so much for your awesome comments and feedback.
This is my first time attempting a cream cheese frosting and it was delicious! I did edit the recipe to suit our tastes so the original recipe I rated as 4 star. I used much less butter (1/2 cup) and 2 cups sugar and this was perfect for us! It went lovely with your red velvet cake.
Super fluffy and I very much appreciate the fact that the frosting isn’t too sweet.
Thank you for that great review! I’m glad you enjoyed this recipe!
This is by far the best recipe I’ve tried for a red velvet cake! So moist and delicious. The frosting adds the perfect sweetness and your tip about not having the ingredients soft worked wonders for me! Thank you so much ❤️❤️
That is so awesome! I’m so glad to read your wonderful review, thank you so much for sharing that with us, Salma!
I had two tabs open one for the red velvet cake and the other for the cream cheese frosting and my comment was meant for the red velvet cake post sorry about that! 😃😃
Hi Natasha! can I use frozen cream cheese for this recipe? I still have 500 gram of frozen cream cheese. Do you think I need to buy a new one?
Hi Rachel, I haven’t tried using frozen cream cheese. I imagine you would need to defrost it, but I can’t speak to it working or not.
I made this one to decorate my cake but it was too sweet .
Hi Tatyana, did you make sure to use the correct amount of cream cheese and salt to balance the frosting? Normally this one isn’t overly sweet with those two ingredients but you can add less sugar to taste, but keep in mind it does help with keeping a thicker frosting. If you love a less sweet frosting, you might really enjoy our Swiss Meringue Buttercream.
Can it be use for cakes, is it stable enough?
Hi Paulina, this goes well with our red velvet cake!
How would you adapt this for a lemon flavour for poppy seed cake
Hi Dianne, I imagine you can add some lemon zest in here. Have you tried our lemon poppy seed cake?
Love this icing. A big hit with my family and friends.
Love all your videos and recipes.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying our videos, Rosalie! Thank you for that wonderful review.
Morning! Being allergic to ‘things with a hoof’ I substitute marscapone cheese for cream cheese in recipes, but when I try in frostings it’s so runny. Do you know of a way to thicken it so I may indulge in this yummy frosting? Thank you so much!
Hi Catherine, I haven’t tried that in this one so I’m not sure I can make an adequate recommendation for it.
Hi Natasha, love you recipe and cant wait to try. But could u pls first help me with this
– how to make buttermilk?
– substitute of eggs ?
Lemme know soon so i can make it. Thanks alot. Lots of love