This delicious strawberry cream cheese frosting is made with just a few fresh ingredients and has the perfect consistency for topping cakes and desserts. This strawberry frosting gets its beautiful color and strawberry flavor from a fresh strawberry reduction versus red food coloring or artificial flavors.
While strawberry flavors pair well with vanilla, yellow, or a double chocolate cake, I really love using this recipe when I make strawberry lemon cupcakes. It’s also worth mentioning that if you wanted to frost a strawberry cake that’s okay too. The flavor is still sweet and it’s so creamy that it’s not overpowering.
If you have decorated cakes or cupcakes, you know that it takes a good frosting recipe for the piping to come out well. If you don’t want to use buttercream, I recommend going with a cream cheese base because it compliments most flavors and holds its shape decently. A cream cheese buttercream frosting does tend to be slightly softer, so I wouldn’t use it for detailed cake decorating, but you can pipe a basic swirl or shell border.
We use fresh berries for this creamy strawberry frosting, just as we did when we made our popular blueberry cream cheese frosting.
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🍓 Ingredients:
- 1 cup chopped fresh strawberries – we cook down the strawberries to create the flavor and color base for our frosting recipe. Ripe, flavorful strawberries will give the best flavor for our icing.
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar – this helps to thicken and sweeten the strawberry reduction
- 1 cup salted butter, softened – if you use unsalted butter, go ahead and add a pinch of salt to the mixture
- 2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened – Room temperature is best, we don’t want the cream cheese melty or too soft as then it won’t hold its shape as well when frosting our baked goods.
- 5 cups powdered sugar – this sweetens and stiffens the icing.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract – adds a nice depth of flavor to the frosting. You can also add strawberry extract for extra flavor.
For a full list of ingredients and their measurements, 📋 please view my printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Substitutions and Variations
- Reduced Fat – Use a low-fat cream cheese to reduce the fat content in the strawberry buttercream. Note that you will lose some of the creamy texture and flavor that we love.
- Strawberry Powder – Rather than using real strawberries, you can use freeze-dried strawberries. Place about 1 cup of freeze-dried berries in the bowl of a food processor and pulverize into a fine powder. Mix the fruit powder into the frosting mixture instead of the strawberry puree. The flavor profile will be slightly different and does not have quite the same fresh strawberry flavor, but you can get quite a punch of flavor with this method. This will also produce a more uniform texture (smooth frosting) as the powder is finer than the fresh strawberry puree. Adjust the amount of powder added to the frosting for your personal taste preference.
🔪 Instructions:
PREP: Bring the butter and cream cheese to room temperature in advance. It’s important that the ingredients aren’t overly warm or your frosting will be too soft.
Making the Strawberry Purée Reduction
Step 1: Heat the chopped strawberries in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil and sprinkle in 1 tablespoon of sugar.
Step 2: As the strawberries cook, use a potato masher to break them down to be as close to a puree as possible. Stir frequently as it continues to simmer and most of the excess liquid has evaporated. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the puree has reduced by half, which will yield a ½ cup of fresh strawberry puree when finished. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature in the fridge before making the frosting.
Making the Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Step 3: In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the softened cream cheese and butter until it’s light and fluffy. You can also use the paddle attachment to mix the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Step 4: Add in the vanilla extract and continue mixing until combined.
Using room temperature cream cheese and room temperature butter will produce a smooth, fully incorporated strawberry cream cheese icing. If the ingredients are too warm, however, your frosting may turn out too soft.
Step 5: Mix in 5 cups of confectioners’ sugar. To reduce the mess, work in batches. Start the hand mixer on low speed and after all of the powdered sugar has been incorporated, turn it up to medium speed to get a fluffy, light frosting.
Step 6: Beat in the cooled strawberry reduction until evenly combined.
- Keep your batch of frosting in the fridge until you are ready to add it to the piping bag. This will keep it firm so it holds its shape.
- Tip #1M is my favorite for a big pretty swirl when piping cupcakes.
- If you are using the icing in between cake layers, freeze each layer first. This makes it easy for the crumb coat to go on and you don’t waste frosting.
- Can’t get ahold of fresh strawberries? Use strawberry jam or strawberry jelly instead or thaw frozen strawberries.
- Nutrition facts represent a standardized 1 ½ Tablespoon serving size – this recipe will cover about 72 cupcakes (6 dozen) with a thin layer of frosting. Generally speaking, 1 cup of frosting will frost 12 cupcakes. The piped frosting shown here is quite a bit more than a standard serving size. You can frost about 2-3 dozen cupcakes with big swirls. The recipe yields 6 cups of frosting and is enough to cover a 2-3 layer, 8-inch round cake.
If you are decorating and you find your frosting is going flat, place it back in the fridge for a few minutes. The cold temperature will harden the butter and cream cheese in the mixture and provide a stiffer consistency. You may also add in a little meringue powder if you have it.
Chances are not enough liquid evaporated during the reduction process or it was added to the cream cheese mixture before it was totally cooled. If the butter and/or cream cheese was overly softened, this can cause runny frosting as well.
Yep! Just add the leftover frosting to a freezer bag or an airtight container and freeze for up to one month. Thaw frosting in the refrigerator and rebeat with a mixer when ready to use.
If you try this Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting or any other recipe on my website, please please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you liked it in the 📝 comments below.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 cup salted butter softened
- 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Strawberry Puree Reduction Instructions:
- In a 2 quart saucepan, heat the chopped strawberries over medium heat. Bring the strawberry mixture to a boil and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar.
- Use a potato masher to break down the strawberries as they cook. You want them to be as finely pureed as possible. Continue simmering, stirring frequently, until nearly all liquid has evaporated.
- Cook for about 10 minutes total, until the puree has reduced by half (you will have ½ cup of strawberry puree when done.)
- Remove puree reduction from heat and cool to room temperature in the refrigerator before preparing frosting.
Frosting Instructions:
- Beat together softened cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.
- Add in vanilla extract and beat until combined.
- Beat in 5 cups of powdered sugar, working in batches to reduce the mess.
- Beat in remaining cooled strawberry puree reduction.
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Notes
- When piping cupcakes, keep your batch of frosting in the fridge until you are ready to add it to the piping bag. This will keep it firm so it holds its shape.
- If you are using the icing in between cake layers, freeze each layer first. This makes it easy for the crumb coat to go on and you don’t waste frosting.
- Can’t get ahold of fresh strawberries? Use strawberry jam instead or thaw frozen strawberries.
- *Nutrition facts represent a standardized 1 ½ Tablespoon serving size. Generally speaking, 1 cup of frosting will frost 12 cupcakes. The piped frosting here is quite a bit more than a standard serving size. You can frost about 2-3 dozen cupcakes with big swirls. The recipe yields 6 cups of frosting and is enough to cover a 2-3 layer, 8-inch round cake.
Nutrition
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Comments & Reviews
ROUNDS TONJA D says
Love this
Stefanie says
Thank you so much!
Deonna Harmon says
This stuff is dangerous!!!! It is soooo delicious! I used frozen strawberries and I used vanilla bean paste so I had beautiful vanilla in my frosting. This wasn’t too sweet and had such a nice flavor. I refrigerated it for 30 minutes after I made it so it would be stiffer when I went to decorate my cupcakes. I made the 72 quantity and was able to frost 36 cupcakes with nice 1.5-2 inch swirls and still had probably enough to frost another 3-4….. Thank you for this recipe!
Simcha says
I love the recipe. If I had to give constructive criticism I would say it needs to be stiffer. Besides that it was perfect. I will continue to use it and figure out how to make it a little stiffer.