Description
A healthier version of cream cheese frosting, without powdered sugar. This frosting is perfect for spreading on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, or other baked goods.
Ingredients
Scale
- 10 ounces, full fat brick cream cheese, room temperature
- 2 ounces butter, room temperature
- pinch of salt
- 2 to 4 tablespoons honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar (depending on how sweet or tangy you like you frosting. I used 3 tablespoons of honey)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 to 2 tablespoons corn starch (or sub arrowroot starch)
Instructions
- Cream : Add the room temperature cream cheese and butter to to bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl if using a hand mixer. Cream on high, until well mixed. Add the salt, sweetener of choice, and vanilla extract, and milk, mix again on high until well incorporated – scraping down sides as needed.
- Finish: Add 1 tablespoon of corn starch and mix until well incorporated. At this point you can adjust the consistency of your frosting as desired. If you want it to be a little thicker add 1 teaspoon of corn starch at a time until it’s thick enough – NOTE: do not add more then 2 tablespoons of corn starch total. To thin it out add 1 teaspoon milk at a time. How much milk you need to add will depend on the consistency your prefer, and how much sweetener you add. Also, keep in mind that if you are using maple syrup, or agave nectar, which is more runny than honey, you may not need milk at all. Keep checking the consistency as you go. It should be thick enough to not fall from a spoon when held up, yet it should be easy to spread.
- Frost: frost cooled cakes, cupcakes, cookies, or other baked goods immediately. You could make the frosting up to several days in advance, just bring it to room temperature before frosting. This frosting especially works great carrot cake.
Notes
This cream cheese frosting is just enough to frost two layers of a 9 inch cake, but without frosting on the the sides . If you want to frost the sides or are making a larger cake you may want to up the recipe by half or double.
I have not tried piping this frosting, although I imagine it might work well, I don’t have any experience with how the consistency of piped frosting should look or act. If someone tries to pipe it please let us know how it goes in the comments below. Thanks! 🙂
