Cream Cheese Frosting

My husband's favorite cake is Angel Food.  I have tried, in vain, to find an eggless clone of this fluffy, spongy treat.  Maybe someday I'll master it (or more likely, find a recipe from someone else who has mastered it), but for now we must live without it most of the time.  I do purchase a store-bought angel food cake for my husband's birthday, and pair it with an eggless cake of another variety for Zax to enjoy.

Another thing my husband insists on with his angel food cakes is cream cheese frosting.  When my parents served this cake while I was growing up, we always had it with whipped cream and strawberries.  That's how my mother-in-law serves it too, but hubby prefers the frosting.

We'd always assumed hubby's dad liked the whipped-cream-and-strawberry combination best too, because that's how it was always served for his birthday.  Hubby was appalled when he learned that his dad preferred it with cream cheese frosting, because he thought his father should get his favorite cake for his birthday.  Ever since hubby made that discovery, part of our birthday gift to his father has been an angel food cake frosted with homemade cream cheese frosting, with instructions to keep it all for himself.  We did this again this past weekend.

I found a variation of this cream cheese frosting recipe online a few years ago, and it's so good that I never buy store-bought icing anymore.  I have become a frosting snob.  Here's the recipe so you can enjoy too!

Cream Cheese Frosting 

(contains a whole lot of dairy, but not much else!)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature
• 8 oz cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar (more or less to taste.  I usually do about 2 1/2 cups, although I went as low as 1 1/4 cups for Zax's first birthday, when I was trying not to make things too sweet.)

Directions:

1. Mix butter and cream cheese, about 3 minutes on medium speed, until smooth
2. Add vanilla.  Mix well.
3. Slowly add sugar to desired sweetness.

This makes for a very smooth and spreadable frosting.  You can easily tint it with food coloring, or leave it white.  This is the same frosting I used on Zax's Lego birthday cake.

Frosting the cake for his father.  We moved about
half the frosting to this smaller bowl, so that the
leftovers would not be contaminated with egg-filled
cake crumbs.

Linking up at Allergy Free Wednesdays and Gluten Free Fridays

 

Whew!  This has been a month of nothing but sweets!  I think maybe I'll go back to savory recipes for a little while.

And don't forget to check out our Peanut Allergy Slap Bracelets!  A new twist on medical alert jewelry!