1-Two-3+ Cream Cheese Perfectionist

Cream cheese frosting is always second to any other buttercream frosting because it’s much creamier and it may be difficult to work with. Especially if you are from a warm weather country, the cream cheese becomes so soft that piping it may be really difficult. Even so, there are a few reasons why I’d still choose a cream cheese frosting over a buttercream frosting any day:

• I can reduce the sugar and thus the sweetness because it already has a great tangy flavour
• It makes me feel good knowing that I’ve halved my calorie and fat intake 🙂

Now, I don’t really like the word Perfectionist but I can’t quite describe my personality with another word. I do indeed get very obsessed about “making it right” and I would repeatedly tweak my recipes to make them as close to flawless as possible. That being said, I’ve definitely worked with cream cheese more than thirty dozen times. In fact, I’ve worked with cream cheese in all climates – we’re talking from tropical all the way to British – and you can believe me when I say that I know how to keep it hard. Getting weird?

Jokes aside, I’ve come up with a technique and a recipe that’s really easy to remember. I like to call it “1-Two-3+”. It’s very simple – the recipe contains 3 main ingredients, along with 3 main approaches to remember. It’s called 1-Two-3+ as the main ingredients go by portion of “one to two” and “one to three+“, i.e. “one to more than three“. Are you with me?

Ingredients: 1 portion of Butter, 2 portions of Cream Cheese, 3+ portions of Icing Sugar

1. Use softened to touch butter and cream cheese, not room temperature (BIG DIFF). If you are using cream cheese spread, just take it out from the fridge later than the butter.
2. Whip the butter first until creamy, then add the cream cheese until smooth.
3. Beat the icing sugar by portions, adding around 3 tablespoons each time.

The portion of icing sugar is adjusted to your taste. I like to stick to 333g, because I like to keep it less sweet and easy to remember (such an Asian trait).

And that is all! The “1-Two-3+” recipe and technique for the perfect cream cheese frosting. If you’re thinking how this sounds simpler than it should, you are probably right.

But to make sure this recipe is foolproof, here are some more 1-2-3 tips for you.

TIPS:

1. Please use full fat everything, no skim or semi-fat whatever
2. If you are adding other liquids such as milk or lemon, add them at the end and only in very small portions. Better yet to replace them with solids, e.g. lemon zest
3. If you’re working in warmer climates, spoon the frosting into a piping bag and leave to chill in the fridge before piping

Recipes with Cream Cheese Frosting:

• Cinnamon Rolls
• Carrot Cupcakes w Cream Cheese Frosting
• Red Velvet Cupcakes