Magical Cream Cheese Frosting
A magical take on cream cheese frosting! A hybrid of magical (ermine/flour) frosting & cream cheese frosting, this recipe is firm, pipeable, & more stable.
*This post was originally published on September 9, 2013. I thought it was due for an update! So, I’ve included new photos, added a how-to video, and given more detailed instructions and tips for success. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this cream cheese frosting as much as I do!*
I am always on the lookout for new frostings to try!
You can top your cakes and cupcakes in many different ways, from American-style buttercream to Swiss meringue buttercream to seven minute frosting. I’ve tried (and loved) them all!
So when I first heard about magical frosting (aka ermine frosting, cooked flour buttercream, or boiled milk icing), I wasted no time trying it out.
It’s excellent! With a fluffy and smooth texture. I liked it a lot!
But the one thing that struck me about ermine frosting was how well it held up. It keeps its shape and doesn’t weep, slump, or get all melty. It got my wheels turning…
I love a good cream cheese frosting. There are so many things that require it. Red Velvet. Carrot cake. Lemon Cupcakes.
But a lot of times, it can be a little loose and gloopy.
Naturally, I set out to try and make a magical cream cheese frosting.
And guess what? It worked.
Table of Contents
- What Is magical cream cheese frosting?
- What does magical cream cheese frosting taste like?
- Why you’ll love this magical cream cheese frosting recipe
- Ingredients and notes
- How to make magical cream cheese frosting
- Recipe FAQS
- Expert Tips
- How to use
- How to Store and Keep
- Serving size
- More Frosting Recipes You’ll Enjoy!
What Is magical cream cheese frosting?
Magical cream cheese frosting is a hybrid of magical frosting (aka ermine frosting) and regular cream cheese frosting.
It’s made with no powdered sugar.
Instead, you cook a sweet, thickened milk mixture and then whip cream cheese and butter into that.
What does magical cream cheese frosting taste like?
This frosting has a pronounced cream cheese flavor. It’s really tangy and just sweet enough.
But the magic is in the texture. It’s super fluffy and smooth.
Because it’s made without powdered sugar, there’s no grittiness whatsoever. It’s light as a cloud and so silky!
Why you’ll love this magical cream cheese frosting recipe
- It has an awesome, tangy cream cheese flavor.
- There’s also a whisper of vanilla and a hint of lemon.
- This frosting pipes like a dream.
- It has a super fluffy texture.
Ingredients and notes
Here’s a quick rundown of the ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe and why:
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the frosting. If you like things sweeter, you can use more, or if you prefer a less sweet frosting, less. In this case, it really won’t affect the chemistry of the recipe.
Regular white sugar is fine, or sub for another type of sweetener if you like. As long as it swaps 1:1 for granulated sugar it should work.
Flour
All-purpose flour provides structure to the frosting, helping it to be stiff, pipeable, and stable.
For a gluten-free cream cheese ermine frosting, leave out the flour and use an additional 2 tablespoons of cornstarch instead.
Cornstarch
Cornstarch is a colorless, odorless, and flavorless starch that is used as a thickener, so it does much the same thing as flour.
Make sure you’re using cornstarch, which is white and powdery, and not cornmeal, which is yellow and gritty and tastes like corn chips.
Salt
Salt carries the flavors and intensifies them. The end result won’t taste salty, but it will make everything so much more flavorful!
I like kosher salt best because it doesn’t have any additives (table salt usually contains iodine and that can leave a bitter taste), so the flavor is pure. It’s also inexpensive and easy to find in a regular grocery store.
Milk
Milk is used to dissolve the sugar. This is what creates that satin-y smooth mouthfeel!
Use whatever kind of milk you keep on hand. Skim milk, whole milk, 2%… even a plant-based milk will work here!
Lemon juice
This ingredient “lifts” the flavor of the frosting and enhances the tanginess of the cream cheese.
The end result won’t taste lemony, it will just have a subtle brightness.
Vanilla
Vanilla extract adds a subtly sweet flavor without being at all sugary.
For a more pronounced flavor, try using vanilla bean paste.
You could also split a vanilla bean down the center lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and add those.
Cream cheese
This recipe works best if you use cold cream cheese, straight from the fridge.
Look for the kind that comes in a brick. The kind in a tub could make for a runny frosting.
And make sure it’s full-fat! You need the fat for things to whip up properly.
Butter
I like to use unsalted butter because it lets me control the amount of salt in the dish.
Different brands of butter can contain different amounts of salt, so this way you get a more consistent result.
This recipe works best if you allow the butter to come to room temperature first.
You can set it out on the counter a few hours ahead of making your recipe, or you can microwave it for 10 seconds, turn it over, and microwave it again for another 8 seconds.
How to make magical cream cheese frosting
Step 1: Make the roux
In a small pot, whisk the sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt together until combined.
Then, slowly dribble in the milk while whisking.
It’s really important to go slow for this step so you don’t end up with a lumpy roux!
Step 2: Cook the roux
Cook this mixture until it starts to bubble and thicken, making sure to whisk continuously so it heats evenly.
Again, you don’t want lumps! As soon as it comes to a bubble, you’ll see it transform into a thick, almost gluey mixture.
Step 3: Chill the roux
Strain the roux into a heat-safe container, and pop it into the fridge to chill.
It needs to be very cold before the next step.
Step 4: Work in the cream cheese
Add the lemon juice and vanilla extract once you have the roux good and cold.
Whip the mixture on medium-high speed, adding the cold cream cheese just a tablespoon at a time.
Let each tablespoon of cream cheese completely incorporate before you add the next one.
Step 5: Work in the butter
When all the cream cheese has been added, do the same thing with the softened butter.
One tablespoon at a time until your buttercream is smooth and fluffy.
Step 6: Whip it good!
The final step is to crank up the mixer to high and whip that frosting until it’s super light and airy.
You’ll see the icing nearly double in volume right before your eyes!
Recipe FAQS
I recommend using the highest quality, full fat, lowest moisture-content cream cheese you can get.
The higher the moisture content, the harder it will be for this buttercream to hold its shape.
That’s why I only use the kind of cream cheese that comes in a brick.
If you can only get a tub of cream cheese where you live, by all means, give it a try if you like. But I can’t guarantee that the result will be quite the same.
As you can see in the video below, this magical cream cheese frosting is pipeable! It pipes like a dream and holds its shape very well.
It’s a little stiffer when cool, so if you’re working with it on a very hot day, you might want to chill it beforehand.
Because it contains no powdered sugar, this frosting will not crust like a classic cream cheese frosting.
However, it becomes a little drier on the surface as it sits exposed to air. So it’s not entirely soft on the outside, either.
Expert Tips
- This recipe takes a little bit of planning ahead.
- There’s a bit of downtime.
- You must cook it on the stove and wait for it to cool.
- Avoid runny frosting. It’s all about the temperature with cooked frostings like this one.
- Make sure the roux is fully chilled before mixing in the other ingredients. It will melt the cream cheese and butter if it’s still too warm.
- Your cream cheese should be cold.
- Your butter should be soft but cool. If it’s too soft your frosting could come out soupy. Leave it out on the counter for about 30 minutes, and it should be just right.
- Use cream cheese with the lowest moisture content you can find. I mentioned this above, but it bears repeating. Whipped cream cheese and cream cheese spread in a tub are much softer than the kind in a brick. That soft, loose quality will translate into your cream cheese frosting. So use a stiffer cream cheese, and you’ll end up with a stiffer frosting.
- If you’ve goofed up on the temperatures and find yourself with runny cream cheese frosting, all is not lost! Just put everything into the fridge for about 20 minutes, then re-whip. You should see it come together pretty quickly!
How to use
Tinting: You can tint this frosting if you’d like! I would recommend using gel paste icing colors. They are highly concentrated, so you only need a tiny bit, and they won’t add a lot of excess liquid to your cream cheese frosting.
Under fondant: You can use this cream cheese icing as a base under fondant. It holds its shape best when cool, so it’s a good idea to chill the frosted cake before covering it with fondant, so it stays nice and smooth under all that handling.
How to Store and Keep
Once made, you can store the frosting in the fridge for several days, up to a week.
When you’re ready to use it, it may seem a little less airy or workable from sitting in the fridge for so long. It can settle and become compacted over time, but if you pop it into the mixer and fluff it back up, it works like a charm!
It’s a good idea to plan ahead if you want to make this frosting recipe. You must allow plenty of time for the roux to chill before adding the cream cheese and butter.
Does magical cream cheese frosting need to be refrigerated?
This frosting can sit out at room temperature for a few hours, but anything longer than that and it should probably go in the fridge. It should last for a least a week refrigerated, maybe even a little longer!
Serving size
This recipe makes about 3 cups of frosting, which is enough to top 24 cupcakes, to frost and fill one 6-inch diameter triple-layer cake, one 8-inch diameter double-layer cake, or if you stretch it, one 9-inch diameter double-layer cake.
You can double or halve this recipe, no problem, if you need less or more.
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More Frosting Recipes You’ll Enjoy!
- Marshmallow Frosting
- Cream Cheese Frosting
- Whipped Chocolate Ganache
- Easy Chocolate Frosting
- Royal Icing
Magical Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (31.25 g) all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons (24 g) cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.5 g) salt
- 1 1/2 cups (366 g) milk
- 1 tablespoon (15 g) lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon (4 g) vanilla extract
- 4 ounces (113.4 g) cream cheese, cold
- 1/2 cup (113.5 g) unsalted butter, softened but still cool
Instructions
- Place the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt in a small pot and whisk to combine.
- Gradually whisk in the milk, taking care to whisk out any lumps.
- Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring often, until thickened.
- Pass the mixture through a fine mesh strainer, and into a heat-safe container.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
- Place the cooled mixture in a large mixing bowl, along with the lemon juice and vanilla, and whip on medium-high speed.
- Whip in the cold cream cheese, a tablespoon at a time, allowing each addition to fully incorporate before adding the next.
- Whip in the softened butter, a tablespoon at a time, allowing each addition to fully incorporate before adding the next.
- Turn the mixer up to high speed, and continue to whip until doubled in volume and very fluffy.
Notes
Hi! Do you know if I can cover this butter cream with fondant? Thanks!
Yes absolutely! It’s perfect for that.
Hi Allie!
I ‘d love to frost my red velvet cakes and cupcakes with this.
I tried it yesterday however the cream cheese curdled in the end and kinda separated from the roux and the butter.
Can you please advise what attachment to use with my stand mixer?
Is it the paddle or whisk?
And what do you think I did wrong?
Many Thanks!
Hi Richelle! So sorry you had trouble. I’m not exactly sure but it sounds like maybe the roux was too warm? Could it have caused the butter to melt? As for the attachment I think either should work.
Hi Allie,
Will the cream cheese frosting hold up in humid conditions? We live in Pa very humid and no air conditions venues. Please let me know! Thank you for your time. Sincerely Karen
Hey Karen! I’m in PA too! It holds up very well, but obviously it’s best if you can keep things chilled as much as possible. Hope that’s helpful!
I made ermine frosting once, using flour, cornflour and granulated sugar, and it whipped up so fluffy and held up beautifully even in the humidity here in Malaysia, it never melted or started sliding down the cake. I made your frosting for a hummingbird cake, and while it tasted very nice, not so sweet like normal cream cheese frosting, and it did whip up quite nicely, it did not hold up as well as the first flour frosting I made. Could this be because the first recipe melted the flour, cornflour and milk first, then later whipped the butter and the granulated sugar, and added in the flour mixture? Thanks!
Hey Shantila! It’s more likely because of the cream cheese. Cream cheese has a high moisture content so it’s always a little tricky to work with.
Just found this recipe and after following the readers’ comments, it worked great! I piped it onto mini bundt cakes and it looked perfect. The right amount of sweetness and nice and light. Even stood up in our hot/humid church. I did cook the base until it was like paste and refrigerated several hours. Also, switched the order of the butter and cream cheese so that the cream cheese was the last thing to add to make sure it didn’t break down too much. I even used Neufchatel and skim milk it held fine. Definitely adding this to my favorites.
So happy it worked out for you! Thanks for the great feedback.
I came across this recipe while looking for a cream cheese & cookie butter frosting that isn’t as cloyingly sweet as a crusting frosting. My question is whether I could sub cookie butter (Trader Joe’s brand or Biscoff brand) for the butter– or do you think just adding the cookie butter and keeping the amount of butter in the recipe as is would be better? (I would probably need to add about 1/3 – 2/3 cup of the cookie butter to get the good flavor)
That sounds like a delicious idea Kathy! I wish I could answer your question but unfortunately I have never tried doing that so I don’t really know if it would work or not.
I stumbled on this recipe while hunting for an extra tangy cream cheese icing recipe. I had never made one before and bought the spreadable cream cheese by mistake. When I saw that this recipe stiffened up the usual mix, I thought it might help make up for having the wrong kind of cheese.
And it worked beautifully! From other forums I gather there are folks out there who live in areas where the drier, block cream cheese is hard to come by so this is the perfect solution for those who only have the spreadable kind at their disposal!
I was a little worried about the comments on it having a milder flavour, so I decided to use goat milk kefir (it was on hand) instead of regular milk for the roux, and that certainly added to the tang nicely. (A hint of the “goatyness” also comes through, which I quite like, but cow’s milk kefir would be a good substitute for those less partial to it.)
I should also mention that I cooked the roux until it thickened to the point I could hardly stir it, based on what I’d read in earlier comments. After it cooled it was a solid, gelatinous blob, but it smoothed out just fine with the beater. I also followed another commenter’s suggestion to beat the butter first in a separate bowl, then added the cream cheese and blended it with the butter, before adding the mixture to the roux one tbsp at a time.
The result was a very spreadable, not at all runny icing that was just like the ordinary cream cheese icing in texture. Not stiff enough to pipe but still good enough to cover a carrot cake! (If it had been chilled it might have even stiffened up enough for some decorative efforts, but that wasn’t my aim – just going for yummy and usable.)
I hope these details of my first adventure help anyone else who reads this far down the comments list 🙂
Thanks for posting such a great recipe and salvaging tonight’s dessert!
Thank you so much for this Catherine! I love all of your suggestions, especially the idea of using kefir for extra tanginess!
I was thinking of making this as an alternative to a cream cheese frosting because I wanted something more stable, but I still want the cream cheese taste to come through. Will this recipe work, or does it have more of a buttery taste? Also, have you ever experimented with adding a cooked flour roux to a normal cream cheese frosting in order to make it more stable? Thanks 🙂
This frosting has a cream cheese taste and it’s basically just cooked flour frosting with some cream cheese subbed in for butter. I hope that is helpful!
The cream cheese isn’t subbed for butter, they’re both used.
What a waste of butter and cream cheese. This isn’t near pipeable. It’s a wet gooey mess. I used Philadelphia cream cheese, 1% milk, and a quality brand unsalted butter. I make ermine frosting all of the time so I know the consistency of the roux. How disappointing.
So sorry you had a problem Robin! I’m not sure what could have gone wrong there, it piped nicely for me.
This recipe is terrible, I followed the instructions to a t and it turned out like cream cheese custard.
Hey Avery- so sorry you weren’t happy with it. It’s meant to be a little bit more dense in order to hold up well for piping. If you’d like a fluffier frosting, you might enjoy the one from this post: https://bakingamoment.com/tuxedo-cupcakes/.
This did not work at all. My husband had asked for a cream cheese frosting for his birthday cake. I made the recipe to spec. The roux was thick and well chilled when I started the next phase but the frosting never set completely. Instead it stayed runny. I added an extra brick of cream cheese, then several cups of powdered sugar, attempting to thicken and save it – but it stayed far too soft. A traditional cream cheese frosting or buttercream would have been better. I did manage to frost my cake, but could not pipe this frosting. It did set somewhat more after hours in the fridge.
Thanks for the recipe this piped beautifully. To make sure it stayed very stiff, I used the technique I learned with regular Ermine frosting.
I cooked the boiled milk custard flat on a plate to ensure it got completely cold.
I also whipped the butter and whipped cream first until light and fluffy, added lemon juice and vanilla and then added the milk custard in one tablespoon at a time. This gave me a very stiff frosting. I frosted my cake and then did the final piping the next morning and after a night in the fridge and it was even stiffer.
Thanks!
This is such an excellent tip! Thank you so much Sandy!
Why did you use whipped cream?
Hi Allie, Thank you for the wonderful recipe. I tried it and it worked well. Just that it was little runny. But, maybe that’s because of the weather here in Mumbai (very hot and humid). I refrigerated the frosting before using which solved the problem. Another thing is that, it tasted very buttery. cream cheese could not be tasted. If i change the proportion by adding more of cream cheese and less butter, will that work?
Your tips would help. Thanks again.
You can certainly try it Ashwini but when I did that it seemed to be even more runny. The cream cheese usually has a high water content, and the butter helps to stabilize that.
Hi Allie, thank you for the reply. Tried one more butter cream recipe with melted white chocolate. The consistency is like what I required, but the buttery taste is still overpowering. Maybe, my taste preferences are different. Your recipe really helped. Thank again.
It did not work for me either. I even used 80% fat butter . It’s still gloopy.
I’m so sorry you had trouble! Just a tip for anyone who might be reading, and in case you ever want to try again: it’s really important to cook the roux until it’s quite stiff. Also, Philadelphia brand cream cheese (the kind in a brick) typically has the lowest water content, so I’d definitely recommend using that.
Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. I tried it yesterday and it came out wonderful. I cheated a little to save time. I blitzed the flour/milk mixture in my vita-easy to make it smooth.
Smart tip! I might have to try that myself, thanks so much for sharing! And I’m so pleased you were happy with it. I haven’t made this in a while but I’m thinking about doing it again for an upcoming cake post 😉
I did a trial run and it was perfect.I was able to pipe it nicely. I slightly overcooked the cornstarch mixture so it made it a bit jelly-ish. The combo of that , butter and cream cheese made a super sturdy, no-melt frosting.
The second time, I really watched the cooking step not to overcook the mixture..It did not turn out as jelly-ish stiff but just thick. When I whipped with butter and cream cheese (after completely cooling overnight) it wasnt as sturdy at the first one. Too soft to pipe but still holding shape when smeared onto cake. Still stable and the stiffest cream cheese frosting Ive ever made. Not too sweet….not magical (dont like witchcraft hehe)….but miraculous!!!! Wish I could post a pic here…. I WILL BE MAKING THIS CREAM CHEESE FROSTING FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE…..
Maraming Salamat…” many thanks”in Tagalog 😀
I’m so glad it worked out for you Meriel! And thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Sounds like the key must be to really cook the cornstarch well. Maybe that is what some of the previous commenters had difficulty with? Going forward, I’ll be sure to refer people to your comment! Thank you again 😀
Hi, I’m going to try this, ready for a cake, how long will the frosting keep in the fridge? Also would you recommend refridgerating the frosted cake to keep it firm?
Hey Dawn! That’s awesome. I’d say probably a week or two in the fridge. And if you can refrigerate the cake it would definitely help to keep things more firm. Thanks!