Food & Cooking Recipes Dessert & Treats Recipes Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting 5.0 (2) This citrusy frosting is easy to make and irresisitbly creamy. Prep Time: 15 mins Total Time: 15 mins Yield: 5 cups Jump to recipe Our easy lemon cream-cheese frosting is a tangy, just-sweet-enough cake topper that’s bursting with citrus flavor. It’s made with just four ingredients: cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and fresh lemon, which you’ll want to zest before juicing. An electric mixer is used to beat the frosting until it’s light and fluffy, which will only take about five minutes. This recipe makes about five cups worth of frosting, which is enough to cover our fluffy vanilla sheet cake, frost a nine-inch layer cake, or decorate two dozen cupcakes. If you’ve got a lemon lover in your life, this is one frosting recipe you’ll most certainly want to try. Frosting vs. Icing: What's the Difference? Tips for Making This Lemony Frosting Use room temperature ingredients: When making cream cheese frosting, it's essential to bring the ingredients to room temperature before mixing. Not only will cold butter and cream cheese be more difficult to beat, but you'll also likely end up with a lumpy end product that's difficult to smooth out. Adjust with more sugar or milk: Because the ingredients and fat content vary between brands of cream cheese, you may find yourself with a frosting that's runnier or stiffer than you'd like. Luckily, this is easy to adjust: Add more confectioners' sugar as needed to thicken your frosting, or beat in milk or heavy cream—a splash at a time—to thin it to your desired consistency. Don't overmix: It's important to only beat the butter, cream cheese, and sugar together until the mixture is just smooth and creamy but not too much more. Overmixing can cause the fat and liquids in the mixture to separate, which can result in a grainy or weepy texture. Whenever a recipe calls for lemon zest, it's best to use organic lemons as they aren't waxed. If using conventional lemons, scrub them with a vegetable brush under hot tap water to remove the wax before zesting. Directions Beat cream cheese, butter, and sugar; add lemon: Beat cream cheese, butter and sugar until smooth, about 5 minutes. Beat in lemon zest and juice. How to Store Lemon Cream-Cheese Frosting This frosting can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months; stir refrigerated or frozen frosting well before using. For best results, thaw frozen frosting in the refrigerator overnight. 5 More Favorite Frosting Recipes to Try Simple Vanilla Frosting Chocolate Ganache Frosting Coffee Frosting Seven-Minute Frosting Milk Chocolate Frosting Updated by Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds is an experienced recipe developer, recipe tester, food editor, and writer with over a decade of experience in the food and media industries.