My Go-To Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese frosting makes everything better. This recipe has appears on my blog so many times, I decided it deserves it’s own post. I’ve used it to top cinnamon rolls, Oreo cupcakes, Carrot Cake Cheesecake, and everything in between.
When you’re making cream cheese frosting, make sure you give the cream cheese enough time to come to room temperature. If it’s still cold, the frosting will be clumpy. And no one likes clumpy frosting! I usually set mine out at least 2 hours prior to whipping up the frosting.
One Year Ago: Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting
Two Years Ago: Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cream Cheese Frosting
This is my go-to cream cheese frosting. It will make enough frosting for 12 cupcakes and can easily be doubled.
Yield: 1 cup (enough to frost 12 cupcakes)
Ingredients:
4 oz cream cheese at room temp
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp) butter at room temp
1/2 Tbsp vanilla
1 1/2-2 cups powdered sugar
Directions:
Place the cream cheese in the bowl of your mixer. Beat on medium-high until completely smooth, 3-4 minutes. Add the butter and continue to cream until fluffy.
Add vanilla extract. Slowly add powdered sugar (1/4 cup at a time) until desired consistency is reached.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
OMG, I am in love with these cupcakes! They’re so awesome! I love HP, and I made owl cupcakes when the movie came out. I might need to give these a try before going to see the IMAX 3D movie.
How cute are those?! And i was wondering how you got the lettering so perfect – thanks for the step-by-step. Lol – I just dragged DH to the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry – I’m sure he’ll be happy when the final movie comes out and he doesn’t have to hear about it anymore!
Great job, how lucky are your friends?
I’m so jealous! My two sisters are going to the exhibit this weekend. I thought about flying to Chicago to join them. Luckily I found out the exhibit is coming here in October. Whew!
These look fabulous! You did such a great job on them!
WOW JEN!! Those are fantastic!! Better than professional! Seriously, what talent you have to make those! 🙂
Aw thanks Katie – you’re making me blush.
I hate when cupcakes do that to me too. Instead of baking up they bake out! 🙁
Love your Harry Potter cupcake toppers! Very cute and creative!
~ingrid
Hi Jen! A friend of mine forwarded me your page for HP Cupcakes and I just wanted to drop in and say that I think they’re awesome and I want to run home now and try to create some fun hp themed cakes! I had done some in the past–cauldron cakes if you will, by buying mini cauldrons and cutting the bottom off so the tops sat just on the cakes and then used a bit of green frosting on the inside. You should join up with the HP-MA crew! We’ve been organizing some meet-ups for Boston Fans!
Sounds awesome Manda.
Oh my goodness, what adorable little cupcakes!
So so cute! And yeah, those “HPs” must have taken FOREVER. I have a fabulous vanilla cupcake recipe that never fails me here: http://annies-eats.com/2008/07/18/vanilla-cupcakes/. Also, I recently made Dorie’s perfect party cake into cupcakes and had great results with that as well.
I love your HP cupcakes! I too am a huge Harry Potter fan but I have to admit, I don’t think I’d be patient enough to make cupcakes and toppings as cute as yours!
These are so awesome!! I wish I would have seen them and did some of these with the HP cake I did!!