If you're a fan of fresh fruit or fresh raspberries, this raspberry cream cheese frosting recipe is made for you. Alongside its vibrant naturally pink color and excellent taste, you'll love adding it to your homemade cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and more. While softer than an American buttercream, it still pipes beautifully when decorating baked goods.
This easy recipe for frosting is one that I have used to adapt to many other flavors and options.
While classics like almond buttercream definitely have their place in baked goods, trying more out-of-the-box flavors like mango buttercream is super fun.
For instance, this blueberry cream cheese frosting came to be around the same time as the raspberry variety here. Making one easily led me to create the other.
Shake things up even more with a basil frosting! I kid you not, I was so skeptical, but it's delicious and refreshing.
You will find yourself really enjoying the process of experimenting with different flavors once you start.
And for more raspberry-themed sweets, check out:
Jump to:
- 🩷 Why You'll Love this Frosting Recipe
- Ingredients
- How to Make Frosting Less Sweet
- Adding Jam
- Steps for Homemade Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
- How to Use this Creamy Frosting
- Storage Instructions
- 💡 More Tips for the Best Frosting
- ❓Frosting FAQ
- More Recipes like this Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
- Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
🩷 Why You'll Love this Frosting Recipe
- Creamy texture: Thanks to cream cheese, this frosting is soft and spreadable while still holding a nice shape.
- Easy to make: In addition to having great flavor, this recipe is a quick one to literally whip up.
- Natural food coloring: I'm such a sucker for a colorful frosting or buttercream. When possible, I like to achieve colors naturally. The end result of this recipe is a cheery shade of light pink, and it's all natural.
Ingredients
Many of main ingredients for this raspberry cream cheese are common ones you'd find in American buttercream. However, the tanginess of some cream cheese gives this frosting a different flavor and slightly softer texture. It is less stiff than a traditional buttercream.
Below is a list of the simple ingredients you'll need to make this cream cheese raspberry frosting.
- Room temperature unsalted butter - We use butter here for a bit firmer frosting. This helps give it stability when you pipe it onto a cake.
- Powdered sugar - This ingredient (sometimes referred to as "icing sugar") helps keep your frosting light and fluffy.
- Full fat cream cheese - Fat equals flavor! You can use low fat if you'd like, but the flavor will be slightly different.
- Freeze dried raspberries, finely ground into a powder - Freeze-dried raspberries give a fresh raspberry flavor to this frosting. They get their taste from real fruit, and they pack a punch. This ingredient is a must! Also, you can use a fine mesh strainer to remove the raspberry seeds from the powder. But I don't mind the seeds and do typically keep them in the frosting. You may want to remove them if you are looking for an ultra smooth texture.
- Vanilla extract - This adds a nice, warming note to the frosting, giving it a bit more sweetness and depth, too. If you like almond extract, this recipe is nice with a dash of that, too, though it's not necessary.
- Pinch of salt - Although it may sound counterintuitive, salt in sweet desserts and dishes counterbalances sweetness and helps make flavors stronger and more pronounced.
- Optional:
- Add a few drops of lemon or lime juice (or white vinegar) to cut sweetness
- Raspberry extract is not necessary but can add an extra kick
How to Make Frosting Less Sweet
Some people really love desserts where you can easily taste the sugar.
But that flavor can be overwhelming or off-putting.
If you find yourself wishing that the buttercream or frosting that you're eating weren't so cloyingly sweet, read on. Lemon juice, lime juice, or white vinegar can come in handy.
Those liquids are all acidic. Adding just a couple of drops to your frosting and then doing a taste test will help you cut back on an overly sweet taste. I added some lemon juice to this raspberry frosting recipe.
Adding Jam
Some recipes call for using seedless raspberry jam or raspberry puree.
I found that this recipe tasted like raspberry and didn't need jam for more raspberry flavor. However, you're welcome to experiment with it.
I'd add a tablespoon at a time. If the frosting becomes too soft from the added moisture, you'll want to incorporate some more powdered sugar into it to thicken things.
Steps for Homemade Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Smooth the Cream Cheese: In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or a large mixing bowl with a handheld electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth (about 2 minutes). Add the butter and beat butter for another minute until fully combined.
Incorporate Dry Ingredients: Turn off the mixer and add salt, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract (plus raspberry extract if using) to your cream cheese and butter mixture. Mix on low to incorporate the sugar, then increase to high for 2-3 minutes. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl, ensuring all ingredients are combined.
Add Raspberry Flavor: Mix in finely ground freeze-dried raspberries until well combined. Taste and add lemon juice, a few drops at a time, if needed to balance sweetness.
Pipe & Decorate: Transfer frosting to a piping bag fitted with your preferred tip and decorate cakes or cupcakes as desired.
How to Use this Creamy Frosting
This recipe creates enough frosting for decorating a dozen cupcakes or a smaller (think two layers and 6″ round) layer cake.
This frosting would be a nice way to change up a traditional chocolate cake or cupcake with a pop of berry-flavored frosting. It also goes great with vanilla. I've used it for my vanilla cupcake recipe and fudgy chocolate cupcake recipe and had a lot of fun pairing those flavors together.
Storage Instructions
This raspberry frosting freezes very well and also stays fresh in the refrigerator for a few days.
Freeze it in an airtight container or tightly sealed plastic wrap for 3 months. Let it thaw and come to room temperature before attempting to use it to decorate cakes or cupcakes.
This buttercream will stay fresh keep in the refrigerator in an airtight container for about 3 days.
You can also freeze fully decorated cupcakes or cakes that use this frosting.
For more on a related topic, I have a detailed guide for freezing cupcakes.
💡 More Tips for the Best Frosting
- Want super smooth frosting? Once your stand mixer has done the hard work, spend a few more minutes with a spatula and your mixing bowl. Use the spatula to pop air bubbles in the frosting. To do this, push frosting with a spatula from the middle of your bowl to its edges, watching as the tears and bubbles in your buttercream disappear. Spend 3-4 minutes doing these motions to achieve nice, smooth frosting.
- Buttercream too sweet? Add a few dashes of lemon juice, lime juice, or distilled white vinegar. It cuts the sweetness, so taste test until it's your desired flavor.
- If you need to thin out this frosting, add a few splashes of heavy cream or milk. Adding raspberry jam or preserves will also thin out this frosting.
- If you need to make a thicker frosting, add about ¼ cup of powdered sugar at a time. Mix until you've reached your desired consistency.
- If you’re not already, use a kitchen scale for accuracy in baking. Weighing your ingredients and writing or following a recipe using a standard metric like grams ensures consistency. I highly recommend investing $30 or less in a kitchen scale.
❓Frosting FAQ
Typically when people talk about cream cheese icing, they're referring to a glaze or drizzle to pour over a dessert. Icing is common on Bundt cakes, loaf cakes, and muffins, to name a few ways you would use it.
Meanwhile, cream cheese frosting is thicker. You'd use it to pipe or decorate cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and various other baked goods.
Buttercream is traditionally made with heavy cream (or milk), powdered sugar, butter, and extract for flavoring. As you noticed, there's no cream cheese in buttercream frosting, though.
While there are many variations on cream cheese and buttercream frostings, generally, cream cheese frosting is a bit smoother and less stiff in comparison to buttercream.
For an example of a cream cheese frosting, check out my old fashioned carrot cake with pineapple. The frosting uses a combination of cream cheese and butter for a thicker frosting that still spreads easily.
Powdered sugar is a dry ingredient you may add to your cream cheese frosting in order to thicken it.
Alternatively, you can pop your frosting into the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes. This will help thicken the frosting on its own, as it will be more firm when cold.
Subscribe to receive more recipes like this one in your inbox!
More Recipes like this Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
An easy recipe, this homemade raspberry cream cheese frosting adds pretty pink color to a layer cake, cupcakes, cookie sandwiches, and more.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 2 cups 1x
- Category: Frosting
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- ¾ stick (85 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups (400 grams) of powdered sugar
- ¾ block (170 grams) cream cheese
- 1 ⅓ cup (1 oz/30 grams) freeze dried raspberries, ground into a fine powder
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- Optional:
- A few drops of lemon or lime juice (or white vinegar) to cut sweetness; add to your preference
- 1 tsp raspberry extract for more intense raspberry flavor
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment — or in a large mixing bowl using a handheld mixer — beat the cream cheese until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the butter and mix for another 1 minute or until fully combined.
- Turn off mixer and add salt, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract (along with raspberry extract, if using) to bowl. Mix on low setting to slowly incorporate powdered sugar before increasing to high setting for another 2-3 minutes.
- Add finely ground freeze dried raspberries to mixing bowl and mix until well-combined. Taste test and add a few drops of lemon juice at a time if needed to cut sweetness (personal preference).
- Put frosting into a piping bag fitted with a tip of your choice and decorate cake or cupcakes as desired.
Notes
This recipe creates enough frosting for decorating a dozen cupcakes or a smaller (think two layers and 6" round) cake.
Leave a Reply