Cream Cheese Frosting With Pecans For Cakes And Cupcakes

Cream Cheese Frosting is terrific on just about any cake, but is especially good on Carrot Cake and Italian Cream Cake. The icing is also perfect for cupcakes!

Cream cheese gives the frosting a tangy flavor and reduces the powdered sugar's overall "sweetness" factor. The combination of ingredients is perfect. You can also add chopped pecans to the frosting.

This easy-to-make frosting is fantastic and takes only 15 minutes to make. Add chopped pecans to the frosting for Italian Cream Cake to add a savory element to the sweet cake. If you have never had Italian Cream Cake, you don't know what you are missing! 

The icing or frosting has just five ingredients: cream cheese, butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, and a little bit of milk. Six ingredients if you add the nuts.

The butter and cream cheese should be softened for easy whipping. This frosting is so good I could eat it with a spoon. 

Cream Cheese & Powdered Sugar Frosting Recipe

Finding powdered sugar in a box is difficult. Most powdered sugar come in a 32-ounce bag. After googling the measurements, 16 ounces of powdered sugar equals 3 ½ to 4 cups. Use those measurements and adjust to how sweet you like your frosting.

You definitely need an electric mixer so the frosting turns out light and fluffy. I use a small hand mixer for the frosting and my KitchenAid mixer for things like sausage balls and Martha Washington chocolate balls because the dough for these recipes is so stiff. 

 

This cream cheese frosting recipe makes enough icing for a three-layer cake but I think it is a little skimpy.  Ocassionally I will add an extra 2 ounces of butter and cream cheese and more powdered sugar to make a larger amount of frosting. I frost the top of the cake layers, then do the sides. 

You may have extra frosting if your cake is only two layers. 

 
The frosting will keep in the refrigerator for two or three weeks, so save it for cupcakes or even banana bread!