Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting

For a recent 30th birthday bash for a friend, I helped frost cupcakes into baseballs as this friend is an avid *ahem* Angels fan. I don't remember how many cupcakes there were, but two cans of store bought frosting wasn't enough to cover all of them and disgustingly enough, we discovered that the third can was actually already opened by someone at the store. They had decided to take a finger of frosting for themselves prior to putting the can back. GROSS.

We decided to make our own frosting to finish off icing the white part and then we needed additional frosting for the red stitching of the baseballs. Little did we realize that this little adventure, which should really have not taken that long turned into almost an hour long project.

The original recipe is below, but it should be noted that we halved it since we didn't need that much, and we added an additional 1/2 stick of butter when the frosting was so thick it was a lumpy ball that couldn't be used in a piping bag (or the ghetto version: a ziploc bag). I had the priveledge and joy of using my friend's beautiful KitchenAid mixer. (*pause for moment in heaven*) When day, when I get married...well, rest assured it's gonna be on the registry.

Back to the topic at hand. The original mistake I made with this recipe was that I used the whisk attachment when creaming together the cream cheese and the butter instead of using the paddle attachment as it usually tells you to do in recipes. It was a terrible mistake because it wouldn't even beat properly and all the butter got stuck whisk blades (is that the proper term, I don't know) and I had to spend a lot of time with a spatula and a butter knife trying to push out pieces of butter and cream cheese from between the whisk blades. After this, I proceeded to mix it BY HAND because there was no way I was going to use the whisk again. Not my idea of fun.

My mind was also not in the right place and I just poured in the vanilla in the beginning rather than waiting while I poured in the powdered sugar. Thanks, my friends, for putting up with my confusion. Weird, I tell ya, weird.

After all was said and done, and the extra butter added (you could probably also decrease the powdered sugar amount or cream cheese amount to get a thinner frosting), I scooped the frosting into a ziploc bag opened over a cup and squeezed the frosting into the bottom corner of the bag. If you've never made a makeshift piping bag for frosting, always remember--snip the hole for the frosting smaller than you think you'll need. Sounds simple enough, but it isn't always the first thought, and you really only need a small hole to frost. You can always cut a bigger hole if you need to, but you definitely can't cut a smaller hole...and if you can, well, please talk to me after the show, thanks!

Oh! Sidenote-dying the frosting red was an interesting time. I used more than a bottle of red frosting to make it this bright red color, and after that I proceeded by adding more in hopes of getting a darker, fuller red---yea, no dice. I even tried adding a TAD of blue to just get it darker, nope. It tried to turn purple on me instead, so I had to add more red to make it red again. I felt like a mixologist. I've never worked with food coloring before so I don't know how it works. But I will say, if you work with fondant, I think the chemistry of that is a little more sensitive.

Moving on, I had fun making these, sans the (i will admit they're cute) Angels tags that luckily I did not have to attach. My friend's very crafty wife made them and really, they are quite cute, even if they do advertise for that other Los Angeles team. (But we who really live in So Cal know that Anaheim isn't even in LA, but hey, who's counting?)

Anyway, the frosting is quite yummy if you love cream cheese frosting, but I docked points for its annoyingly thick texture for which we were not prepared. These are some of the pics I took from the party with my SLR. *sigh* SLR pictures are so much prettier than my point-in-shoot pictures, why don't I use my SLR more?? Enjoy!

4.5 stars out of 5! Wonderful and I'll definitely make it again!


This was my first time piping anything. Couldn't tell, could ya?? I'm sure the squiggly, uneven lines and the runny parts weren't clues.

I love these people because they know how to throw a party. What do you mean, you ask? I mean this---CHOCOLATE FONDUE FOUNTAIN, YES!!!!!!

Warning, gratuitous usage of chocolate follows...







And last but not least: nothing says Happy Birthday like a Birthday steak. Yes, you read that correctly.


Go Meat! Happy Birthday, Junior!

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Recipe from here.
This recipe makes 3 cups of frosting. Plenty enough for any regular cake.

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.