Homemade cream cheese frosting is one my favorite types of frosting.  I generally make a buttercream frosting for frosting cakes and cupcakes, but cream cheese frosting is a necessity for things like red velvet cake and carrot cake around here.  Plus this cream cheese frosting recipe is so easy to make! Cream cheese, butter, extracts and powdered sugar are mixed together to create a bowl of fluffy, white goodness.

It’s really easy to get lazy and not make homemade frosting.  I mean, it’s just so easy to just pick up a tub in the store! But cream cheese frosting is one type of frosting I have never bought in a tub. That’s just how incredibly good this recipe is.

I don’t have many “family” recipes, but this is one of them. My mom is not much of a baker, but she makes a carrot cake once a year for my dad’s birthday and frosts it with this cream cheese frosting.  Recipes from my mom are pretty rare. I think I need one of those self ink stamps that says “Do Not Destroy” to put on the recipes I have from her.  I think the trick that makes this frosting so good is the almond extract. My mom adjusted the original recipe and added the almond and it adds a unique flavor to the frosting.  The recipe calls for 2 cups of powdered sugar, but I’ve used 1 1/2 cups and it’s worked just fine.  This makes enough frosting to frost a 9 x 13 cake, inverted on to a platter, with plenty of frosting for taste testing.  Of course, if you are counting calories, low fat cream cheese works, too!