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Strawberry Cream Cheese Icing

Strawberry cream cheese icing made with fresh strawberries is an intensely strawberry-flavored, fluffy icing. This icing is perfect for topping cupcakes, cookies, pound cakes or even muffins. Fresh strawberry purée is added to a cream cheese frosting base to create a soft icing. If you are looking for a frosting that you can pipe into tall swirls, try my strawberry cream cheese frosting.

bowl of strawberry cream cheese icing
Strawberry Cream Cheese Icing

 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Icing

chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing
Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Icing

I used this strawberry cream cheese icing for cupcakes, but I would love this strawberry cream cheese icing for cinnamon rolls too. It is such a delicious icing that you could use it on everything from lemon pound cake to chocolate cake, like I did here. I put it on top of my Devil’s Food Cupcakes and let me tell you, that cupcake was gone in four bites. That first hit of strawberry and chocolate on my tongue tasted like a chocolate-covered strawberry.

Does strawberry cream cheese icing need to be refrigerated?

cupcakes with bowl of icing
Frosting cupcakes

If it is cool in your house, it can sit out for a few hours. However, keep in mind that it will get even softer when it gets warm. If it is a warm summer day, I would leave them in the refrigerator until just before serving. Because this is a softer icing to begin with, I wouldn’t leave it out for long in warmer weather.

how to make strawberry cream cheese icing

cupcakes with strawberry cream cheese icing on cooling rack
cupcakes with strawberry cream cheese icing

This icing does require a few minutes of cooking. The fresh strawberries are puréed and cooked down before being added to the icing. Because you are concentrating the flavor by cooking it down, the icing has a wonderful strawberry flavor. Ten minutes on the stove is all they really need to reduce down. After the purée has cooled to room temperature, it is added into the icing.

Strawberry cream cheese icing for cake

overhead shot of cupcakes

This icing would be fantastic on a sheet cake. All you need is a spatula to smooth it across the top of the cake. If you want to use it to fill a layer cake, I would pile the frosting on top of the bottom cake and refrigerate it so the icing could set up and harden a little before placing the top layer on the cake.

The reason for this is simple – because the icing is soft, some of it will get pushed right out by the weight of the top layer. I like a thick layer of filling in layer cakes, so I wouldn’t want to lose any of it.

Cream cheese icing with strawberries

 

chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing
Cream cheese icing with strawberries

You can see from the photo how fluffy and luscious this icing is. It is billowy and soft and incredibly delicious. I used a small offset spatula to pile the icing on top of the cupcake. As I mentioned earlier, this is not a stiff frosting that you can pipe.

You’ll find that here under strawberry cream cheese frosting. The difference between a frosting and an icing, for most of us in the culinary world, is that frosting is something you can pipe with and icing is softer, almost more of a glaze in some cases.

Think about icing on holiday cookies versus fluffy frosting on a birthday cake. For some people, they are interchangeable. For our purposes, they are not, so we can differentiate between them and there is no confusion which one we’re talking about.

Essential tools for making icing or frosting:

These are legitimately the things I have in my kitchen. I use this stuff on almost a daily basis, as I cook for a living, for this blog and also for this household. While I do earn a few pennies if you purchase something from the link provided, it does not affect your cost at all.

One of my favorites from this list are the offset spatulas. They come in handy for more than just frosting cakes and cupcakes.

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please refer to my disclosure page.

Pin this recipe to your frosting board:

Yield: 12

Strawberry Cream Cheese Icing

chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing

Strawberry cream cheese icing made with fresh strawberries is an intensely strawberry-flavored, fluffy icing. This icing is perfect for topping cupcakes, cookies, pound cakes or even muffins.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

Strawberry Purée

  • 1 cup strawberries, washed, hulled and chopped
  • 1 tsp lemon juice, fresh
  • 1 tbsp sugar, granulated

Icing

  • 4 tbsp butter, room temp
  • 4 oz cream cheese, room temp
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt, kosher

Instructions

  1. Combine strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a mini food processor or a blender and puree.
  2. Strain puree through a fine mesh strainer to remove seeds : using a rubber spatula, press the strawberry puree through by working the spatula back and forth in a sweeping motion.
  3. Add puree to a pot and cook over medium high heat for 10 minutes to reduce down.
  4. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
  5. In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese and salt.
  6. Beat butter and cream cheese together on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
  7. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating between additions until fully incorporated.
  8. Add 2 - 3 tablespoons of strawberry purée to icing and beat again until uniform in color.

Notes

This recipe makes enough to frost a dozen cupcakes. 

Refrigerate any leftover icing in an airtight container for up to 7 days.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

12

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 151Saturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 20mgSodium: 113mgCarbohydrates: 22gSugar: 21g

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