Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted from Simply Recipes

Cream Cheese Frosting 

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
• 2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

METHOD

1 With an electric mixer, mix the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes on medium speed until very smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

2 Add the vanilla extract and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Keep adding until you get to desired sweetness and thickness.

3 Either spread on with a blunt knife or spatula, or spoon into a piping bag to decorate your cake or cupcake.

Variations:

• Adding a teaspoon of Chinese Five Spice is always great for exotic chocolate cakes.
• Adding freshly ground ginger helps spice up a carrot cake.
• Freshly ground chai spice or even the contents of a bag of earl grey tea are heady and aromatic.
• The scrapings from a vanilla bean can be very sweet and heavenly for red velvet or dark chocolate cakes.
• Freshly grated or dried, flaked coconut mixed in makes it perfect for a coconut cake.

My comments: I didn't do any of the variations - just tried the plain ol' cream cheese frosting. It came out exactly as I had expected - a delicious cream cheese frosting, but nothing that blows your socks off. I expect that if you were to use some of the variations suggested you could find some phenomenal adaptations!