AI am going to do a belly cake for my sister's baby shower, but she wants cream cheese icing and no fondant. I used a recipe I'd found on this site for crusting cream cheese icing, but it turned out being very dense and runny. much too runny to give a smooth base ice or decorate with. thank goodness that was just a trial run. if you've used this recipe before and had better results please let me know what I could be doing wrong or maybe a better icing recipe?

Atry shortning, cream cheese and icing sugar with a pinch of salt. im sorry i dont have exact measurement cause i just know its ok by looking at it but if you add more icing sugar it will get stiffer and not runny. if too stiff add bit of cream milk or water. but make sure to mix for at least 5 to 10 minutes before making adjustments.

I tried cream cheeseicing last year and it went really runny, it only lasted about 20 mins outside of the fridge before running.  Now I have an idea what went wrong!!!  I shall have retry at some point  Thanks :)

If you have a buttercream icing recipe that you are happy with, you could try to use that and add Lorann cheesecake oil or cream cheese emulsion instead of using cream cheese.  Just a thought...

AMy old cookbook recipes pretty consistently use 1 part butter to 2 parts cream cheese and several cups of powdered sugar. How much depends on how sweet you want your icing. Of course, salt and vanilla as well. There is also, I'm assuming, the more 'professional' method where you add softened cream cheese straight to your already made buttercream. I've done both and they've worked out fine. (correct me if I'm wrong about the 'pro' thing. I read that somewhere once and that person seemed pretty upset that someone would call cream cheese, butter, & sugar 'icing.')

Athese are very helpful tips. I hope this next attempt with the buttercream mixture works out. thank you all.