Cream cheese frosting without the cream cheese

May 10, 2020 9:04 AM

I am making my mother a coconut cake for Mother's Day and her preferred icing is cream cheese frosting. However, our curbside grocery pick up omitted the cream cheese in our order. Does the hive mind have any suggestions about a substitute icing that would approximate cream cheese frosting? Plan B is butter cream frosting which will be tasty but is not my mom's favorite.

Google searches tend to return either butter cream frosting or vegan options.

Ingredients we have on hand - butter, whole milk, confectioners sugar, full fat plain yogurt, sour cream, coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut flakes (the initial plan was to sprinkle them over the cream cheese frosting), half and half, eggs.

(I am currently living with my mom during this strange time so social distancing will be maintained while sharing this cake.)

Thank you!

posted by pineapplerunner to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Best answer: I'd try sour cream frosting - it's very similar to buttercream but hopefully will have enough of a kick to be something your mom will enjoy. If you have cocoa, you could do a sour cream chocolate frosting, which would go well with coconut cake.
posted by pie ninja at 9:08 AM on May 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Sour cream frosting was going to be my suggestion as well. It won't be exactly the same but it will be a little different and closer to cream cheese frosting than straight buttercream.
posted by quaking fajita at 9:13 AM on May 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: What I sometimes do is make regular American buttercream (I like a ratio of 1 cup butter to 1 lb powdered sugar,) then use yogurt and/or sour cream as the additional liquid. Obviously you can use quite a bit more yogurt/sc, probably a few tbsp, than you could if you were using regular milk.

Now that is because I'm going for something pipeable. If you're just looking for a tasty cake topping, then yeah, you can use a much higher proportion of sour cream, possibly even just sour cream + powdered sugar with vanilla added, like cheesecake topping. Delicious.

If you have access to good lemon extract and/or fresh lemon juice, so much the better, add them too.
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:15 AM on May 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I’ve made this before, if you use butter and dairy milk instead of shortening, I think it would work.

The vinegar and lemon juice go a long way toward approximating the tangyness of cream cheese.
posted by kpmcguire at 10:20 AM on May 10, 2020

Yes to sour cream frosting (butter, sour cream, confectioner’s sugar). I made some with a little maple syrup and I keep thinking “this tastes so much like cream cheese frosting.”
posted by HotToddy at 12:25 PM on May 10, 2020

Response by poster: Update - I made sour cream frosting as suggested and it was a hit. Not quite as good as cream cheese but a very respectable substitute. Thank you, hive mind!
posted by pineapplerunner at 6:42 PM on May 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I made a passable cream cheese like frosting with Greek yogurt last week, for a spice cake. IF you only have regular plain yogurt on hand, draining it in a tea towel for a few hours to concentrate solids will give you the consistency you need.
posted by Miko at 4:48 PM on May 11, 2020