Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting is an easy combination of bright, tangy, and sweet flavors. Add it to your favorite desserts. Ready in 5 minutes!
Delicious Cream Cheese Frosting is a classic and easy dessert Frosting for Vanilla Cake, White Cupcakes, and more. This recipe adds fresh lemon juice for a more complex flavor that you can add to some of your favorite treats. Try out my Strawberry Buttercream Frosting too!
Sabrina’s Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
This delicious topping is like spreadable sunshine that you can use to sweeten, decorate, and add an irresistible lemony flavor to so many recipes. After blending the ingredients, it’s ready to spread over your favorite desserts.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 24 ounces cream cheese , softened
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 3 tablespoons sour cream
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 6 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Add the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla to a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy.
- Add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time until smooth and incorporated.
Nutrition
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Sabrina’s Tips
For soft, fluffy frosting, it’s essential to use room-temperature cream cheese and butter. If you don’t have enough time to let them soften on the counter, you can pop each ingredient in the microwave for a few seconds. Add the block of cream cheese and butter to the microwave at 50% power and microwave in 15-second increments, being sure not to melt either ingredient.
Table of contents
About this Recipe
Lemons are such a wonderful ingredient that you can use in both baking and cooking. This frosting recipe highlights everything we love about lemons. It’s the perfect balance of citrus flavor, zingy lemon zest, and plenty of sweetness. Plus, you can make it in minutes by blending the simple ingredients into a rich, creamy texture using an electric mixer.
Ingredients
- 24 ounces cream cheese: For the creamiest, richest frosting, use full-fat cream cheese as the base ingredient. Cream cheese adds tangy flavor, thickens the mixture, and adds structure.
- ½ cup unsalted butter: Butter enhances the rich flavor and helps to mellow some of the tanginess of the recipe. Be sure to soften the butter and cream cheese before mixing so that they can blend smoothly.
- 3 tablespoons sour cream: This is an important ingredient because it lends a similar tangy flavor to the cream cheese while helping to thin out the frosting’s consistency.
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice: For zesty, tart, and sweet lemon flavor, add lemon juice and a tablespoon of lemon zest. You could purchase a bottle of lemon juice at the grocery store, but juicing and zesting a fresh lemon will give the recipe a bolder, brighter flavor.
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract: Enrich the flavor of your creamy frosting recipe with a few drops of vanilla extract.
- 6 ½ cups powdered sugar: You need enough sugar to balance the cream cheese and make a sweet and tangy dessert topping. Using powdered sugar creates a light, airy consistency and the perfect sugary flavor for the homemade frosting. While granulated sugar would weigh down the frosting, confectioners’ sugar is a light enough dry ingredient to blend in smoothly.
Can this be made ahead of time?
Yes. If you want to prep your frosting in advance, you can mix the recipe as usual and then store it in an airtight container in the fridge until you have a dessert recipe to add it to.
Baking Tips & Tricks
- If you aren’t sure how strong you want the lemon flavor, only add a little bit of lemon juice at a time. Taste test the frosting after mixing in the lemon ingredients. Then mix in additional lemon juice as desired.
- When it’s time to decorate, wait for the cake to completely cool before frosting. To make a bakery-worthy cake, it’s best to add two layers of frosting. After spreading the first layer, refrigerate for 1-2 hours to let it set. It’s totally normal to have crumbs in the frosting at this point. Cover any crumbs and imperfections with the second cleaner layer, and pipe decorative swirls over the top.
Pairing Suggestions
The sweet and tart topping is perfect for frosting lemon or white cake, decorating sugar cookies, adding to Lemon Cinnamon Rolls, or using as filling for a Lemon Cake Roll. There are so many ways that you can use frosting to make simple desserts into a lemon lover’s dream. You can also use this frosting as a dessert dip to serve with vanilla crackers, wafers, fruit, or Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies.
How to Store
- Serve: Let the frosting soften at room temperature and transfer it to a piping bag to use.
- Store: You can keep homemade frosting fresh in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. If you’ve already added the frosting to the cake, keep it covered in the fridge for up to a week.
- Freeze: If you make your frosting far in advance, you can keep it frozen for later. Seal the frosting in a freezer bag with as much air removed as possible. Frozen frosting can stay good for up to 3 months. Let the recipe thaw in the fridge, and remix in the stand mixer to fluff it up before serving.
Ideas to Serve
After preparing frosting, use it to frost cakes, cupcakes, or other dessert recipes. You can use a piping bag to add decorative patterns to the dessert and top the frosting with fresh lemon slices, lemon zest, or sanding sugar to garnish. You can also drizzle Lemon Curd over the top.
Frequent Questions
If your cream cheese frosting is turning out too thick, you may just need to continue mixing until the ingredients are light and fluffy. If it’s still too thick after proper mixing, pour in a splash of milk or heavy cream. Mix at medium speed until combined.
Yes. To keep your frosting from going bad, you shouldn’t leave it sitting out at room temperature for more than 2 hours. Instead, transfer it to an airtight container to store in the fridge.
Variations
- Food coloring: To give your lemon desserts a beautiful, colorful topping, add a few drops of yellow food coloring to the cream cheese frosting mixture. Stir until the food coloring is well blended, and add more drops as needed to reach your desired yellow color.
- Fruit flavorings: You can use the same cream cheese frosting base to make other kinds of fruit-flavored dessert toppings. Instead of lemon juice, try flavoring the frosting with fresh lime juice, orange juice, raspberry extract, or other fruit flavorings that you like. You can use the additional fruit flavor in place of the lemon juice or use it along with the lemon juice for a delicious fruit frosting.
- Lemon extract: If you don’t have access to lemon or fresh lemon juice, you can still flavor your cream cheese frosting recipe with a few drops of lemon extract. Add a little at a time and taste test until you reach your desired lemony flavor.
- Salt: You can actually enhance the sweet flavors in your frosting recipe by mixing in a pinch of salt. Just be sure not to add too much, or it can overwhelm the taste.
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I made this to go on a vanilla cake and it was the perfect combo!!
Love hearing this Gabriella and thanks for the five star review.