Ranking right up there with dreamy buttercream and perfect-for-cutout-cookies powdered sugar icing, cream cheese frosting is consistently among the most popular homemade frosting recipes on our site. Rich in texture and flavor, sufficiently sturdy for decorating a cake, and just sweet enough, many of us on Team BHG are proud members of the cream cheese frosting fan club, too.
We also adore the classic combo of softened cream cheese and butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. It’s timeless, versatile, and takes less than five minutes to mix up. But we couldn’t resist putting a few spins on the concept. To date, we’ve added honey, melted white chocolate and dark chocolate, and mascarpone cheese and cardamom (yes, in addition to the cream cheese).
However, chef icon and cookbook author Ina Garten recently informed us we’ve been overlooking another serious cream cheese frosting upgrade—and her video had us running to the Test Kitchen to try it out ourselves.
How to Make Ina Garten’s Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
Although this recipe originally appeared in the 2012 cookbook Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust, it’s having a renaissance thanks to the playful, Easter-themed Instagram video Garten posted to her feed mid-March.
While rocking a pair of bunny ears, she hops into the frame to rave about her Carrot Cake with Ginger Mascarpone Frosting. While the cake itself ~takes the cake~ as the showstopper, we took notice of the frosting—and her recipe had us sprinting to the kitchen, asking ourselves, “Why didn’t we think of that?”
In a bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl with a hand mixer, add 12 ounces of room temperature mascarpone cheese, 4 ounces of room temp cream cheese, 2 cups of sifted powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons of heavy cream, and ½ teaspoon of pure vanilla extract. Beat for about 1 minute or until the consistency is light and fluffy. Next, add the other secret ingredient, besides mascarpone: ⅛ cup minced crystallized ginger. Then toss in ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, and mix for 30 more seconds. Transfer the finished product to a piping bag, if desired, or use an offset spatula to apply a generous coat of this leveled-up cream cheese frosting to your dessert.
Two seemingly minor changes—the mascarpone cheese and crystallized ginger—totally transform the flavor of the cream cheese frosting. Mascarpone makes the flavor a bit less tangy yet still luxurious and not-too-sweet, while the crystallized ginger lends a subtle sweet and spicy element.
Test Kitchen Tip: Candied ginger and crystallized ginger are often used interchangeably, but you might find them sold as different ginger products. Candied ginger is usually sold in a simple syrup, and it tends to be less intense and sweeter. Crystallized ginger is cooked in that syrup, then rolled in sugar and sold dried. The flavor you get from crystallized is often bolder and spicier. You could go with either for this recipe, depending on your preference.
How to Use Ina Garten's Frosting Recipe
We’re wild about this grown-up twist on cream cheese frosting. If you, too, feel inspired to whip up a batch, it would make the following extra mouthwatering:
- Pumpkin Bars
- Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Best-Loved Carrot Cake
- Pumpkin Spice Cake
- Applesauce Spice Cake
- Hummingbird Cake
- Graham crackers (we can’t be the only ones who adore dunking them into leftover frosting…)
If you have extra crystallized ginger, save it for future frostings or put it to good use in Pumpkin Gingerbread with Seedy Streusel or Ginger-Cranberry Relish.
As for the mascarpone, it’s often sold in 8- or 16-ounce containers. Our recipes for Mascarpone-Stuffed French Toast with Salted Caramel-Banana Sauce and Mini Raspberry and White Chocolate Whoopie Pies both conveniently call for the extra 4 ounces you’ll have after recreating Ina Garten’s famous frosting recipe.