A friend is getting married soon and wants an Italian Cream Cake with Cream Cheese Icing for her small wedding, about 15 people. I would like to offer to make the cake for her, but I would want it to look "wedding-y".

I have a very tasty Cream Cheese Icing recipe for Carrot Cake, but I've not tried to smooth it out like you would for a decorated cake.

Can Cream Cheese Icing be smoothed nicely like Buttercream?

If so, is there a recipe particulary well-suited for smoothing?

Here are two crusting cream cheese recipes suitable for decorating:

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/2047/crusting-cream-cheese-icing

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6817/wedding-crusting-cream-cheese-frosting

HTH

JanH to the rescue yet again! Thanks!

I don't have experience with those recipes but I had a great result with Indydebi's crusting buttercream recipe and I had read where she just substituted cr. ch. for part of the shortening so 2 weeks ago I made it and substituted 1/3 cup of shortening for cr ch.(calls for 1 and 1/3 shortening) and it turned out really nice and it crusted nicely too. I added cocoa powder to some, because I needed beige and it was delish!

Kathy Finholt's recipe (the first link Jan posted) is great and can be smoothed with a papertowel. Don't skimp on the quality of your cream cheese - Philadelphia all the way!