Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Speaking of desserts that taste like amazing strawberry ice cream in another form, strawberry cream cheese frosting is a delicious option. I first tried it on chocolate cake, which is how I would recommend. That attempt was delicious, but much too runny. It was really a strawberry cream cheese sauce, not frosting. The problem was, I really wanted to keep the fresh strawberry taste, and I knew that was going to have too much water, but I tried it anyway. That does. Not. Work.

I think poked around the internet and found that everyone uses either freeze-dried-and-powdered strawberry, or cook the strawberry down to a preserve. I had no wish to seek out dried powdered strawberry with who-knows-what in it. So I tried the cooked option, and it is delicious and still tastes of delicious, real strawberry.

The two keys to this frosting are 1) to leave your butter and cream cheese out on the counter well before, so they are truly at room temperature, and 2) cook the strawberries down to the recommended amount.

Makes enough to frost a single-layer, 8″ cake generously.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup (or a 1/2 lb.) fresh strawberries, tops removed and loosely chopped
• 1 TBSP granulated sugar
• 1/2 stick (4oz, 1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup- 2 cups confectioner’s sugar

GUIDELINES

1. Combine strawberries and granulated sugar in a sauce pan and heat on medium low, stirring frequently, until this cooks down to 1/4 cup, has darkened and thickened and looks like preserves. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.
2. Using an electric mixer (or a huge amount of elbow grease), beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the strawberry, vanilla, and salt and beat until combined.
4. Add confectioner’s sugar to taste and consistency.*

*If your frosting is too runny, you may be able to refrigerate it to your desired consistency, or you might not have cooked enough of the strawberry liquid out. If that happens, you can soak it up with confectioner’s sugar to stiffen up the frosting. I don’t like my frosting too sweet–the strawberries are already sweet and delicious!–so I don’t add much confectioner’s sugar, but you may like it with more! Other recipes use up to 2.5 cups of confectioner’s sugar for this amount of other ingredients.

We tried this on vanilla cake, and the frosting was delicious and the cake texture was perfect, but the balance of the two wasn’t quite right.