Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

One of my followers on Facebook asked me to make a video about the differences in cream cheese from the US and Germany. She said that she had tried several brands and hadn't been able to make a decent cream cheese frosting. I thought I'd investigate that a bit and try two brands of cream cheese and work on the cream cheese frosting recipe.

So, I thought I'd try the name brand Philadelphia and the store brand Gutes Land. Both cream cheeses are full fat. I don't recommend trying to make cream cheese frosting with low fat cream cheese. I began with a fairly standard American recipe and quickly realized that the consistency was off, so I ended up adding more powdered sugar.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 cup (220g) full fat cream cheese
1/2 cup (125g) butter
1/2 pkg or 1/2 tbsp vanilla sugar or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
750g (about 6 cups) powdered sugar

Cream butter. Add cream cheese and beat until smooth and combined. Add vanilla and about 1/3 of the powdered sugar. Beat until combined. Mixture will be wet. Add next third of powdered sugar. Beat until combined. Add last third. Beat until combined. Scrape the bowl as needed. Frosting will be fairly thick and spreadable.

I weighed the cup of cream cheese. Oddly, I had read online that a cup of cream cheese weighs about 120g. Not at all true! I weighed a cup of cream cheese from both brands. Philadelphia cream cheese weighed about 230g. Gutes Land cream cheese weighed about 210g. But that's miles away from the 120g I was told to expect.  So, for the recipe, I took the average and called it 220g.

 First cream the butter and then add the cream cheese to it and beat it until nice and smooth.

 After adding the first third of the sugar it should look something like this. The first one is the Philadelphia cream cheese.

 The second one is the Gutes Land cream cheese.

After adding the second third of the sugar it should look something like this. Still too soft to spread. It's a touch drippy.

Hence why I added another box of powdered sugar. Check out that lovely texture after adding the last of the sugar!

After mixing up the two cream cheese frostings, you can see the difference a bit better.

 The two frostings tasted essentially exactly the same. Very lovely. Cream cheese adds a freshness that isn't there in American buttercream, so it's a nice difference. The only major difference between the two brands of cream cheese was that the Philadelphia cream cheese made a bit softer and creamier of a texture in the frosting and the Gutes Land cream cheese made the frosting slightly stiffer and more stable. So, my conclusion is that any brand of cream cheese in Germany can make a lovely cream cheese frosting. It's just essential that you use a recipe that is made for it and not try to use one made for a different product.

 Neither brand sponsored this post, so I consider it an unbiased report on my actual experience using the two.

To watch us make it on YouTube, click here: https://youtu.be/wiH2HHl4x6k
Um zuzuschauen, wie wir es auf YouTube machen, hier klicken: https://youtu.be/s8wUkZ77T7E