Cream Cheese Frosting for David’s Carrot Cake

When younger daughter’s July birthday rolls around, you can be sure that carrot cake is baking in our oven and cream cheese frosting is being whipped in the big mixer.  This is a family favorite!  And because cake with cream cheese frosting needs to be refrigerated, this is a great dessert for summer.  (Once you’ve baked the actual cake and turned the oven off, that is.)

Ingredients

8 oz or 225g cream cheese

1 oz or 30g butter

16 oz or 450g confectioners’ or icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence

1-2 tablespoons milk

Method

Put your cream cheese, butter and vanilla into the mixing bowl and allow time for the cheese and butter to soften. 

Sift the sugar to get all the lumps out, while adding it to the bowl.   Try not to inhale too deeply as the sugar can get in your lungs.

The birthday girl sharing the icing sugar with our helper.  He loved it!

Add in ONE tablespoon of the milk.  Start your mixer on a slow setting so that the ingredients begin to blend without kicking up a cloud of powdered sugar dust.   

You can turn it up to high, after all the sugar has been incorporated.   Scrape the sides of the bowl and whip on high for a minute or two.  

Check the consistency and add additional milk if necessary to make the frosting spreadable.   

I thought mine was still a little stiff so I added the extra milk.

If you have added milk, whip again for another minute.

That's better.

Cream cheese frosting doesn’t lend itself well to decorative work since it softens as you handle it in the icing bag, but it works enough to write a message on the cake and to add a few little spots of color.   (I set aside about 2/3 cup in the refrigerator for adding color to and using for decorating.)  The remainder is sufficient to frost a rectangular cake about 12.5 in x 8.5 in or 32cm x 22cm.

Spoon out the frosting in the middle of the cake and, using a metal spatula or knife, slowly ease the frosting out to the sides of the cake and then down to the plate.   Use the spatula to make some simple swirls to decorate. 

When you are not actively cutting and serving, keep the cake in the refrigerator.

This frosting is the perfect complement to David’s Carrot Cake and, in our house, it is compulsory.

That's how many days she has left as a teenager. 

Enjoy!