Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

This lemon cream cheese frosting is a refreshing way to brighten cakes, cookies or sweet rolls! It’s the best balance of sweet and tangy and easy to make with 5 ingredients!

Best Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

This lemon cream cheese frosting is creamy and silky with just the right amount of sweet and tart. I love my cream cheese frosting year-round but this lemon flavor variation is my favorite for spring and summer!

It starts with room temperature cream cheese, butter, and some powdered sugar. I use fresh lemon zest and juice to get that luscious lemon flavor and sometimes I add some yellow food coloring if I want the color to pop on an Easter dessert.

Ingredient Notes

• Cream cheese: The full-fat block-style is the only one I recommend. Make sure to soften the cream cheese to room temperature. If it’s too cold, it won’t clump.
• Unsalted Butter: Again, make sure to soften the butter to room temp. If you only have salted butter that’s ok! You can omit the salt from the recipe.
• Powdered sugar: This works well in this recipe as it incorporates easily without leaving any granules. You can use more or less depending on how sweet you like your cream cheese lemon frosting.
• Lemon: I use both the zest and juice. Learn how to zest a lemon the easy way. You can use lemon extract if you don’t have any fresh lemons on hand.
• Vanilla extract: It enhances all the other flavors in the frosting.
• Salt: Adds balance to the sweetness.
• Yellow food coloring: This isn’t necessary, and you can leave it out if you prefer not to use it, but it does give you that beautiful vibrant yellow color.

How to Make Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• Mix cream cheese and butter. Cream them together in a large bowl until they are light and fluffy. An electric mixer works well for this part.
• Stir in the remaining ingredients. Stir in the sugar, fresh lemon juice and zest, vanilla, and salt and mix until everything is creamy.
• Adjust as needed. Taste and add more lemon if desired. If you need the frosting thicker, add more powdered sugar.
• Spread or pipe the icing onto your lemon cupcakes, layered cake, or all your baked treats!

Recipe Tips

• Thin the frosting. If it is too thick, you can thin it out with a small splash of milk until you’ve reached the desired consistency.
• Thicken the frosting. If it is too thin, try adding more powdered sugar, a tablespoon at a time until you’ve reached the desired consistency.
• Sifting or whisking the powdered sugar before adding it to the mixing bowl it will help to get rid of any lumps that might have formed in the sugar in storage.
• How much frosting will you need: If you’re using a piping bag to create a higher swirl, you’ll be able to frost about 16 cupcakes. If you’re using a knife to spread it on then you’ll be able to do about 24 cupcakes, a full 9×13″ cake or an 8″ layer cake. 
• Piping. If you find that your frosting is getting too soft as you’re piping, you can put it into the fridge for a few minutes to stiffen up a little bit before you continue piping.

Ways to Use Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

• Use it to top off a vanilla cake, chocolate cake or lemon poke cake.
• Pipe some swirls onto these lemon raspberry cupcakes or lemon blueberry cupcakes.
• Sometimes I’ll swap out the cream cheese glaze for cream cheese lemon frosting on my glazed lemon cookies.
• Sugar cookies can always use a thick layer of frosting on top.
• Add a little extra indulgence to lemon brownies by slathering some frosting on top.
• Instead of lemon curd in crepes or a fresh fruit tart use this lemon cream cheese frosting recipe instead.

Storage

• Store: The frosting is best stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. Cakes and cupcakes that are frosted should be refrigerated within 2 hours. 
• Freeze: Freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Let it thaw out in the fridge and then come to room temperature on the counter. Give it an additional whip for a minute or two before spreading it on your cakes.

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