A raspberry frosting that’s perfectly sweet and fluffy, balanced with tangy cream cheese! This super creamy buttercream uses fresh raspberries to get the delicious flavour and the cute pink colour! You can use this amazing raspberry cream cheese frosting to top vanilla, chocolate, or even my favourite Raspberry Cake!
This frosting is absolutely amazing: pure raspberry flavour, sweet-but-not-overly-sweet, light fluffy and creamy texture, and of course, a gorgeous natural pink colour! Using the American Buttercream method, this half-buttercream, half-cream cheese frosting, fully delightful icing will make you fall in love with raspberries – even more than you already are!
How to Make Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting:
Well, clearly you’re going to use raspberries and cream cheese in it. But what else?
Creaming Butter, Shortening & Cream Cheese:
Start with your solid fats; I like using a mixture of both butter and shortening so that it’s not super buttery tasting. Also add in your cream cheese at this point. Using a mixer (I prefer my KitchenAid stand mixer for making frosting), beat this until smooth and creamy.
It’s super important that all of these ingredients are at the same room temperature, since if one of them is slightly colder, you’ll end up with chunky frosting, which isn’t too appealing when you get a bite that’s just a clump of butter. Trust me, I speak from experience of this happening with both butter and cream cheese! Temperature is key.
Adding Powdered Sugar:
Then, you gradually add in your powdered sugar. This ingredient is key to both volume and sweetness in frosting. Since we’ll be thinning this out with the raspberries, I like to add a bit of extra powdered sugar than I normally do to make it a thicker consistency. The more powdered sugar you add, the thicker and sweeter the frosting gets, so it’s always a delicate balance. However, it’s an art not a science, so you can adjust the amount of powdered sugar to your liking.
When adding in powdered sugar, I normally do about 1-2 cups of it at a time. After you add it to your mixer, mix on low speed at first to avoid getting a puff of powdered sugar that nicely dusts your mixer, counter, clothes etc.
Once it’s mostly incorporated, work your way up to high speed. I normally end up running mine on the highest speed for a few minutes since that’s what makes it perfectly incorporated, no lumps, and super creamy. It does however incorporate more air bubbles, but running your mixer on low speed at the end, or folding it violently with a spatula (my preferred method of getting rid of air bubbles and getting in my arm workout of the week), usually works.
Raspberries Come Next:
Next, we make our raspberry component. In my Raspberry Cake recipe, I cook my raspberries to make a reduction. Unfortunately, when you cook raspberries, they release a purple colour, so I knew I didn’t want to do that for this frosting. I did luck out in the end because I got a beautiful pink colour instead when using the other method. No need for any food colouring this time – everything’s all natural!
So if you don’t cook the raspberries, what do you do? Since I needed to add the raspberries to the frosting in liquid form, instead of reducing them, I blended them. I blended a bit longer than I thought was necessary for the raspberries, just so that the raspberry seeds would get chopped up a little in the process. You could also strain out the seeds if you prefer, but I found them okay since they were very small. Plus then you know the frosting was made with real raspberries!
Putting it All Together:
Once the butter and powdered sugar mixture is super creamy and smooth, basically like a normal buttercream at this point, you add in your liquids. This is both the blended raspberries and a splash of vanilla extract. Once you mix these in, you’ll see your beautiful pink colour come to life and your frosting will be done!
Of course, I encourage you to sneak a little taste test at this point to see if you need to add slightly more of one ingredient. If it’s not sweet enough, you can add in a bit more powdered sugar. If it’s too sweet, try adding in a splash of lemon juice, or a tiny pinch of salt; but be careful when using the salt method as you need to mix it very well to not get bites of salt. Again, trust me, I speak from experience and salty frosting is not appealing! Remember, frosting is always an approximate, and everyone’s taste is different, so adjust wherever needed!
Pairing This Frosting:
If you haven’t tried my Raspberry Cake recipe, I highly recommend it! It is insanely moist and packed with fresh raspberry flavour – an absolute dream come true! And if you’re a raspberry lover like me, then you would adore this pairing! But if raspberry on top of raspberry doesn’t seem like your jam (get it? lol!), this frosting would also pair amazingly well with either chocolate or vanilla cake!
Let me know in the comments if you try this frosting! Enjoy!
Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups butter room temp
- 1 cup shortening (I prefer Crisco)
- 8 oz cream cheese (brick not tub, equal to 1 cup) room temp
- 4 1/2 – 5 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries (if frozen, thaw before using)
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat your room temperature butter, shortening and cream cheese until light in colour and creamy. This will take a few minutes on medium-high speed. Scrape down the bowl well (there may be some non-creamed butter stuck at the bottom, so make sure you catch this now and re-beat to avoid clumps at the end).
- Gradually add your powdered sugar about 1 cup at a time. *When mixing in powdered sugar, start your mixer on low speed until mostly incorporated, then whip on high speed until smooth.
- Scrape down the bowl and then repeat step 2 until you've reached 4 cups of powdered sugar. Now is a good time to taste your frosting to see if it's sweet enough, but keep in mind the remainder of the ingredients will alter the sweetness. If it's too buttery, add more powdered sugar, about a 1/2 cup at a time until you reach your desired sweetness. (I ended up using about 4 1/2 cups).
- In a blender, blend your raspberries until they become a uniform liquid. Be sure to give it a shake or a stir to make sure that there are no pieces left behind. I like to also blend for an extra minute or two at the end to chop up the raspberry seeds into smaller pieces since I don't normally strain them out. However, if you plan on straining out the seeds (it's completely up to you) you can skip these extra minutes.
- Pour (or strain) the blended raspberries and vanilla extract into the frosting and mix on medium speed until incorporated. Your frosting should be a nice pink colour. Don't forget to scrape down your bowl to fully incorporate all ingredients throughout.
- Taste test your frosting again to see if it needs a bit more sugar or even raspberries. Feel free to adjust as needed.
- Using a spatula, mix your finished frosting by hand to try to squish out some air bubbles. This should take a few minutes, but it's worth it, especially if you're planning to pipe. If you left in the seeds and are piping, I would recommend using a bigger piping tip so that the seeds don't end up plugging the tip.
- Frost your cake or cupcakes (make sure the cakes are cooled before frosting so that they don't melt the frosting!) and enjoy!