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.

Homemade Chocolate Frosting

I am getting so disgusted by downsizing of food products, especially where cake frosting is concerned! It is ridiculous -- I now have to buy TWO containers of frosting in order to have a decent amount of icing on the cake.

I say no. NO to the ripoff (I hope Duncan Hines & especially Pillsbury are reading this); and hail no to the additives & preservatives that are in those processed frostings. (Check out that southern accent!)
We can have better food for less money by making it ourselves. We'll also know our ingredients are fresh.
Tomorrow I want to make a chocolate cake. Old fashioned homemade chocolate frosting does not look difficult at all, and get this -- This recipe will make TWO CUPS of frosting!!!

So here we go --

6 Tablespoons of softened butter (use REAL butter, not margarine or that stuff in the tubs)

2-2/3 Confectioner's sugar (same thing as powdered sugar). If you're like me & don't use this type of sugar often & it's been sitting for awhile, it's a good idea to sift it to get rid of any lumps.

1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa (the powder type)
*TIP* You may want to sift the sugar & the cocoa together

1/3 cup milk

(Frosting making time is not the time to be cholesterol conscious. Use Whole Milk if you have it. 2% will probably work fine, but if you only have skim milk don't even make this)

1 tsp vanilla extract (the real stuff is MUCH better than the imitation)

In a small bowl, beat the butter, then add in the confectioner's sugar & the cocoa, alternating between those dry ingredients and the milk.

It seems hard to believe that all that powdered stuff will go into such a small amount of moisture, but it will.
Keep beating it until it is smooth and creamy. You may need to add more milk, do so very gradually & carefully so you don't end up with chocolate soup!
Blend in vanilla.

Chocolate cake

A good-looking recipe for chocolate cake ... all from scratch. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm going to!

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs