These are some of my trade “secrets,” including my recipe for cream cheese wedding cake frosting. I hope you find some of them useful!
1. Use a box mix. Cakes from scratch are more expensive, time-consuming, temperamental, and aren’t guaranteed to turn out well. A box mix is very cheap and forgiving and turns out great every time. I recommend Pillsbury mixes b/c they turn out the moistest cakes of all the brands that I’ve tried. If you do make your cake from scratch, make sure that your eggs & butter are at room temperature.
2. Make your own frosting. It is worth the effort and doesn’t take much time. The flavor is incomparable to canned frosting and it will make your entire cake taste from scratch rather than generic. Most recipes online will work or just email me if you need help.
3. For cakes that never stick to the pan, no matter how big it is: grease the bottom of your pan, cover it (bottom only) with parchment paper, then grease and flour the whole thing. I use an oil & flour spray mixture (usually generic) so that I can grease and flour the pan in one easy ten-second step.
4. Cool your cake completely before frosting. Otherwise the frosting will melt off and your efforts will have been for naught. Another tip on cooling: after baking, allow your cake to sit in the pan for five minutes and then turn it out onto a cooling rack so that the heat releases easier and it cools faster. Otherwise the cake continues to bake in the pan after it’s out of the oven and dries it out more. Leaving it in the pan 5 minutes allows it to set a little and reduces the risk of the cake breaking since it’s hot from the oven.
5. If your cake feels dry to the touch (this happens especially around the edges), use a spray bottle to douse the affected area with water. I use a bottle designated for water only b/c you don’t want to get residue from a bottle that previously housed cleaner on something you’re going to eat. This trick works wonderfully and doesn’t affect the taste at all. Don’t be afraid to put too much water—just squirt until it feels moist and then keep it covered or wrapped until you’re ready to frost it. The cake will absorb the moisture uniformly so that it’s moist and delicate throughout. You can also add liqueur to the spray bottle to add a subtle flavor to the cake. I used chocolate liqueur on a red velvet wedding cake and have also used Kahlua on a chocolate cake and both worked very well.
6. Here’s another water bottle trick that is invaluable to me. To make your frosting super-smooth on your cake, use your water bottle to douse the entire cake after you’ve smoothed it out as much as you can. Your spatula will glide over it easily to give a flawless finish and whatever water remains on the surface will evaporate and no one will be the wiser. Oh, and you can’t do this without a frosting spatula or some sort of long, straight edged tool. Find the spatulas in the cake supplies section at Wal-Mart near the crafts or in a cake supply store.
7. Here’s another secret that you have to either go to the cake store for or buy online. You know that flavor that’s in the white frosting of every wedding cake you’ve ever had? Have you ever tried to duplicate it? You can’t find it in any Betty Crocker frosting and you will probably never be able to make it at home without crème bouquet.
It is a divine flavor emulsion that gives that sweet wedding cake taste to your frosting. You can add it to plain vanilla frosting, but I also add it to my cream cheese frosting for a subtle, wonderful effect. So there was the wedding cake taste underlying the rich, tangy cream cheese flavor. Yum!
My Secret Cream Cheese Wedding Frosting
1 stick unsalted butter
1 (8-oz) package cream cheese
1-2 pounds powdered sugar (less for a creamier frosting, more for thicker)
2 tsp. clear vanilla extract (you can use regular if you don’t mind the color turning a tad darker)
2 tsp. crème bouquet*
Beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and beat on medium/high. Use immediately or store at room temp until cake is frosted. Refrigerate or freeze if you won’t be using it within a few days. Use the water bottle trick to get it smooth on your cake.
*Crème bouquet is a flavoring, essential to achieving the “wedding cake” flavor. To find out more about crème bouquet, click here.
8. If you’re fed up with cakes that dome in the middle, use Bake-Even cake strips, found in cake supply stores and online. You wet them with cold water, pin them around the cake pan, and your cake rises evenly and fairly flat. This dramatically reduces the amount you have to cut off the top in order to make it flat for layering and frosting, so less is wasted and you get more cake per serving. That’s always good. J
9. And if you do make cakes enough, you should probably invest in a cake leveler. Unless you’re uniquely gifted, it’s nearly impossible to cut the cake top off in a straight line. Wilton sells two different sizes of cake levellers that makes this a breeze. You just adjust it to the height you want and saw across the cake (keeping the cutter straight up and down) and you’ll have a perfectly flat cake that will stack gorgeously.
10. If you won’t be frosting the cake as soon as it’s cool, wrap it well with plastic wrap or seal it in Ziploc bag and press the air out (without squashing the cake). If it dries out in the slightest, just give it a spray with water or liqueur to restore moisture. You can also freeze your cake (after wrapping it well) and when ready to assemble, take it out of the freezer and frost it while frozen! It actually makes the job easier since the hard cakes are easier to handle and cold cake firms up the frosting as it is applied, which helps when icing a cake.
I could go on forever (using a turntable to make frosting a snap, replacing ¼ of the powdered sugar with drivert sugar to make frosting fluffier, etc.) but I’ve given you more than you needed or wanted already. Class dismissed.
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This is seriously such valuable info! thank you so much for sharing these tips!
Thank you so much for your valuable information.
Can you send me your vanilla frosting recipe
I would really appreciate it.
have a good day
vivian
I NEVER make vanilla frosting–can you believe that? If I need a pale frosting, I either make white (it has vanilla in it but I wouldn’t call it vanilla) or cream cheese. Here is Magnolia Bakery’s simple vanilla buttercream recipe, which is what I would use if I made vanilla frosting:
• 1 cup unsalted butter, very soft
• 8 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. Beat until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, until icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency (you may very well not need all of the sugar). If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. Use and store icing at room temperature, as icing will set if chilled. Can store in an airtight container for up to three days.
Thank you so much for taking the time out
to send this to me.
Have a great day.
vivian
Veronica,
Does your cream cheese icing recipe need to be refrigerated? Or do you have a recipe for a wedding cake that will hold up in heat, but isn’t sweet? Thanks!
To be safe, any frosting that has cream cheese in it should be refrigerated. That being said, I’ve left it out for up to five days without going bad. If you’re making a wedding cake with this frosting up to three days before the wedding, I wouldn’t worry about refrigerating it. Frostings that hold up best in heat have powdered sugar in them (swiss meringues are less sweet but melt faster) and thus they are sweeter. I use a LOT of powdered sugar b/c it is best for decorating (you want a pretty thick icing, esp when icing wedding cakes), but no one has ever complained about it. In fact, this frosting is the one most often requested on my cakes. The tanginess of the cream cheese does help offset the sweetness.
I have made a cream cheese frosting similar to this one and it melted in the heat. I had it out on my kitchen cabinet. What am I doing wrong?
How much powdered sugar did you use? I use a toooon and it keeps it from melting except in very high heat. Most recipes call for half the amount of sugar I use, or less.
Veronica,
How long does this icing last if kept in the refrigerator? And can you freeze it to use at a later date? Thank you!
It will last several weeks in the fridge,and months in the freezer. I freeze leftover frosting often to use later. I recommend storing it in a plastic tub with a piece of plastic wrap over the surface of the icing, covering completely, before you snap the lid into place. it stores really well this way without taking on a freezer taste.
I am trying to find out what I could substitute traditional icing for in cake pops. I find the icing makes the cake pop tooooo sweet…for me anyway. Any suggestions?
I would try softened cream cheese, maybe adding half a package at first and then more if necessary. Let me know if that works!
In your cream cheese frosting, What is creme bouquet?
It is a flavor emulsion and I really can’t describe how it tastes other than “wedding cake.” It has lemon, almond, and vanilla but other things in there not mentioned on the label. It adds such a wonderful flavor! You don’t need it to make the frosting, but if you want it to taste like wedding cake, then you do. You can use your own combination of extracts or just use vanilla too.
hi veronica how long this cream cheese frosting can last without fridge? and what is creme bouquet? :) thanks!
Honestly I’ve accidentally left a bowl of this frosting on the table for over a week without it going bad so it’s pretty safe! For information on creme bouquet, click here: http://reciperhapsody.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/celebration-frosting-a-giveaway/
hi there~ what is cream bouquet?
Hi Venus, it is a flavoring. I have a post on it here: http://veronicascornucopia.com/2010/10/28/celebration-frosting-a-giveaway/
Hi
Just stumbled on your site and I love it!
Thx for sharing ur experience!
Ur AWESOME, Veronica
Oh God love ya! Thanks for these tips! Definitely going to buy a cake leveler. And I love your tip to spray the cake with water to make it moist, and to spray the frosting with water too! I’m reading all of your cake series tips!
Miss Veronica, On your cream cheese wedding cake frosting, how much does the recipe make. I’m making a square 4 tiered wedding cake 12′- 10″ – 8″ and 6″. Wondering how many batches I’ll need to make. PS Thanks for the Awesome useful info and tips!
Good question, I really need to measure it next time. In my notes, I wrote that I use 7 batches for the usual size of wedding cake I make, which is 3 round tiers: 14″, 10″, and 6″. For yours, you’d probably need a little more but I’d say 7 at least. You can always make more if you run out.
Thank you so much. Hope you have a good staycation. I live in TN but my family all live in salina\ Minneapolis/ Brokville and Junction City Ks. Miss Kansas!
It was wonderful! I’m surprised we found so many things to do! We once went through TN on vacation but all I can remember is our car breaking down and us getting towed. LOL!
I’ve had this bookmarked since it was posted, but I will be getting around to using it soon. I usually use liquid coffee creamer in place of milk in my vanilla frostings. I’m excited to use your recipe. I do have a question; I’m using the wedding frosting for my daughter’s birthday cupcakes, is this an ideal frosting to use in larger tips? Say a 1M or so if I use more powdered sugar? Thanks so much for your time!
Interesting you use coffee creamer, that is something I had thought of trying but never did. I thought it might be neat to use the flavored ones, like hazlenut to flavor it. I bet it is good! Yes, this frosting is good in tips, but it is a fairly stiff frosting so if you want it to pipe easier, you can use just 1 lb of sugar instead of 2, or just add as much to get your desired texture. I do it both ways and it will work either way. Hope you love it!
Hi Veronica! Love this site! I have a question for you. I am making my own wedding cupcakes and wanted to do red velvet with a cream cheesing frosting. Does this recipe for cream cheese frosting hold its shape well? Could I do some fancy swirl with it on the cupcakes and it hold and not melt off? My wedding is actually in 2 days! So If I make the cupcakes the day before would they still be ok to sit out, or should I refrigerate them until we are ready to eat them? Ok so maybe I had a few questions :)
It holds it’s shape very well and for cupcakes you can use the less amount of sugar (it’s tastier that way, not as sweet) and it will still hold well. That is how I make it for cupcakes. Yes you can do them the day before and leave them at room temperature. They will be OK for at least 2 days but definitely one day is OK. Do not serve them cold or I will never forgive you. Love, the cake Nazi.
Veronica; this was amazing information!!!
Thanks for sharing your secrets with us :)
Thank you Carolyn, no problem! I love sharing my “secrets.” :)
Hi just wondering if you can put fondant over the top of the cream cheese frosting? Verity
Yes, you can. You can use any frosting you like beneath fondant, just don’t use very much–just enough to help it stick.