This silky cream cheese buttercream is heavenly. Its light, its creamy, its perfect for any cake or cupcake.
A silky cream cheese buttercream is versatile and can easily be jazzed up or down. You could add lemon zest for a more citrus taste. Or cinnamon to top off your snickerdoodle cupcake. Or cocoa powder to make a dreamy chocolate cream cheese buttercream. Any extra ingredient added to this buttercream would truly make a statement. The texture and creaminess of a cream cheese buttercream makes it more elegant than a typical vanilla frosting.
This recipe is simple and easy and only requires 5-ingredients.
What’s in a silky cream cheese buttercream?
The star of this buttercream is cream cheese. It’s important to purchase the right cream cheese. To create the perfect buttercream original brick form cream cheese should be purchased. I normally use either Target brand cream cheese or Philadelphia cream cheese. For instance, if low fat or whipped cream cheese was used the buttercream will come out runny and undesirable. So, save the whipped and low fat cream cheese for cooking and bagels.
Other ingredients needed are salt, unsalted butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. When preparing this buttercream, both the butter and cream cheese need to be at room temperature. If not, it would be hard to blend these two ingredients by hand or by an electric mixer. The salt and vanilla extract are used for taste. The powdered sugar is going to cut the savory taste a little and provide a more stable buttercream. Overall, this buttercream is rather simple, if brick cream cheese is used.
How to store
Since, the frosting contains both cheese as well as butter. We do not recommend leaving this frosting out for more than 2 hours. Following the 2-hour rule from the FDA. They recommend discarding any food left out for more than 2 hours, unless kept hot/cold. Once preparing this silky cream cheese frosting either use right away on your cakes/cupcakes. Or store in an air tight container and refrigerate. The frosting will stay fresh in the refrigerate for 7 days. It could be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months, but we do not recommend that. The frosting texture will be undesirable if stored in the freezer.
Different flavors of cream cheese buttercream
There’s numerous ways to make/use a cream cheese frosting. For instance, our chocolate keto cupcakes feature a keto chocolate espresso cream cheese frosting. Although, that frosting does not contain sugar. It still has a silky consistency and taste amazing. What other desserts can use a silky cream cheese frosting? Check out this list below:
As you can see, this cream cheese frosting could be used for just about any cake or cupcake related dessert. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and try out this recipe.
Cream Cheese Buttercream
Ingredients
- 8 oz. Cream cheese softened
- 1/2 cup Butter softened
- 1 tsp Kosher salt
- 1½ tsp Vanilla extract
- 3 cups Powdered sugar sifted
Instructions
- Using an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat together the cream cheese and unsalted butter. Once thoroughly mixed add in the vanilla extract and kosher salt.
- Scrape the bottom and the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add in half of the powdered sugar and mix on low speed. Repeat this step for the remaining powdered sugar.
- Turn up the mixer to a medium speed and beat the frosting for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
- Use the frosting as desired.