Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Cream Cheese frosting is delicious on many types of cakes, including carrot cake and my intended destination -- red velvet cake.

It is very easy to make. Only 4 ingredients!

You can make this. Don't buy the stuff in the canisters. It's expensive and full of additives. The short cut isn't worth it and you'll like this one better anyway I bet.

Make sure you follow the directions...for instance: "Softened" butter and cream cheese does NOT mean almost soft. It doesn't mean microwave it. Don't take any short cuts. Just leave it out and let it soften.

I'm not saying this to nag you. I want you to not waste money by doing this wrong and ending up with runny frosting.

TIP: Because you are going to mix it all together anyway, go ahead and put the cream cheese and butter into a bowl to soften, because it's easier to remove butter and cream cheese from their wrappers while they are still cold).

Ingredients:

2 packages of cream cheese, softened (you can buy the store brand, it doesn't matter. Just buy it in the rectangular package, NOT the kind that comes in the tubs)

1/2 cup butter, softened (Generally, this is a regular-sized stick of butter. NOTE: Use real butter -- not margarine or the stuff from the tubs. REAL butter)

2 cups sifted confectioner's sugar (Powdered sugar, 10x, etc are all other names for confectioner's sugar).

1 tsp vanilla extract (whenever possible, try to use real vanilla extract. Yes, it is expensive, but I stock up on it when it's on a buy-on-get-one-free deal, which isn't often...so if you see it on sale, stock up!)

Mix all ingredients together well.

FOOD SAFETY TIP: Refrigerate a cake that is frosted with this. There's a reason cream cheese and butter are kept refrigerated. Mixing it with sugar and vanilla extract doesn't change that.

Need chocolate frosting? See this previous post.