Cream Cheese Frosting

So just as I said in an earlier post, I'm trying to eat more healthfully. And now I bring you...

Cream Cheese Cupcake Frosting.          

You're welcome.

Here's what I pinned:

I scoured through several different cream cheese frosting recipes before settling on this one. Ultimately, I ended up choosing this one because it seemed the most simple, with the fewest ingredients and one that was lower in sugar than the others. I personally like tasting the cream cheesy-ness of this recipe and others had twice as much sugar or worse! I was not looking to cut calories, because let's face it: it's cream cheese frosting. However, I do look to cut out a gram or two of sugar where I can. 

The original blogger used reduced fat cream cheese, but I say that if you're going in, might as well go in all the way! Besides, low-fat foods seem to have more additives, sugar, and salt than their full fat counterparts, because the manufacturer is trying to make it taste better. You know what makes it taste better? FAT! So get the full fat version. You won't be disappointed, and if you're watching calories, don't eat a cupcake.

Another deviation I took from her recipe was that I used unsalted butter instead of the salted stuff. I also opted for grass-fed Kerrygold Irish butter. I love this stuff! Both the salted and unsalted versions are delicious. If there is a grass-fed option for anything, it's usually worth the extra cents to get. Not only does it taste better, but it's closer to what nature intended.

Here's the cream cheese, vanilla, and butter waiting to be blended into delicious frosting goodness. After whipping together these three ingredients, you are supposed to use sifted powdered sugar. Well, I don't sift much, so I just gradually shook about half of the box of powdered sugar into the frosting while mixing it with my electric mixer (I also don't measure much). Someday a KitchenAid will be mine!











In the end, I was able to frost all 30 of my cupcakes (with a bit to spare!). It was delicious! I have seen other variations on basic cream cheese frosting that come out to be chocolate, strawberry, or spiced flavor. Those are definitely ones I want to try after making this batch. I have begrudgingly purchased canned frosting for way too long, knowing that they were full of chemicals and partially hydrogenated death. Hopefully those days are soon over. Buttercream is next on my list of frosting to tackle. It was so easy! Pinterest for the win!