My friend wants a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (ccf). I have not used cream cheese frosting yet on my cakes. Do I use the cream cheese frosting to decorate too or do I use the ccf to just frost the cake and then decorate in buttercream.

Thanks!

In my opinion, cream cheese frosting does not have enough stability for decorating. I have a bride that wants cream cheese frosting on a pumpkin spice cake for her wedding. I modified my buttercream by adding a block of cream cheese with butter and crisco instead of all crisco. You get the cream cheese flavor without the greasy aftertaste and you can decorate with it. Prob I have now is bride wants it to be less sweet - thinking about using some cornstarch instead of all powdered sugar. Do you have any ideas?

I have a wonderul cream cheese frosting that you can decorate with. I'm at work right now but I will post it for you when I get home. If you look at the baptism cake in my photos it's frosted in cream cheese butter cream.

1 cup butter
1/2 cup Crisco
16 oz. cream cheese
3 1/2 lbs powdered sugar
1 T vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Mix on low speed for a couple of minutes.

If you use clear vanilla in both the color will be a perfect match for <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" />Wilton's buttercream recipe. I use this to frost cheesecakes
when a couple wants part regular cake and part cheesecake for the tiers.

This makes a fairly stiff icing. For a softer one you can use 3 lbs. of powdered sugar.

Thanks sweettreat101 - yours looks better than mine. You saved me a lot of trial and error. Will be trying this recipe tonite. Making Margarita cupcakes for a Luau - should be perfect. Also, I tried using cream cheese in IBCM - not a good idea. Could not beat it enough to get it past the 'curd' stage. Oh, well, into the trash it went with all of the other not so good ideas!! BTW, bride decided that she loves the frosting the way it is and does not want me to make it less sweet. She said the guests would just have to deal with it - it is her wedding after all!!

Would this cake need to be refrigerated because of the cream cheese?

You can put cream cheese in SMBC and IMBc. The trick is to whip the cream cheese separately and then fold it into the other frosting after it is all made.

I had the same experience as yuo, curdled frosting, but another CCer came to my rescue and told me this trick. I have folded as much as 8 ounces of cream cheese into a batch that started with 5 egg whites. You get a subtle cream cheese taste, less sweet frosting. It went over well on my red velvet. Next time I need it, I will try to add more than 8 ounces to get a stronger tang from the cream cheese.

Having said that if you want a real strong delicious cream cheese taste, then the recipe posted here will do the trick. But IMO, it is a sweeter frosting an IMBC. Anything made with powdered sugar will taste sweeter. Add a little lemon juice to cut the sweetness, probably about 1-2 tablespoons. Do it to taste and start out with less. The key is to cut the sweetness, not taste lemon. I was mildly surprised at how well this worked.

When it comes to a cream cheese frosting, more people prefer the one made the way the OP makes it than the SMBC version because the cream cheese taste is sooooo good.

I use Edna's crusting cream cheese icing all the time:

http://www.designmeacake.com/cccbc.html

I used it to ice and decorate my DD's wedding cake. It's easy to make, tastes yummy, pipes beautifully, and can be smoothed using Viva or Melvira method. It's my son's favorite icing--he won't eat any other kind! However, I haven't had good luck freezing this...it develops annoying little bubbles, which I suppose would go away with re-beating, but for me that defeats the purpose of freezing.

I've also added all sorts of other ingredients to make interesting fillings...vanilla beans, jams, fresh fruit, citrus zest, chocolate, icing fruit (from The Baker's Kitchen,) lemon curd, and even mini chocolate chips!

Thanks everyone!

along with the touch of lemon (I use flavoring) also a pinch of salt does wonders for the taste of this icing.

I can't wait to try out Edna's crusting recipe. However, I too am curious as to whether or not this frosting requires refrigeration because of the cream cheese??

The recipe I posted doesn't require refrigeration. The sugar preserves the cream cheese.

In my food safety class they essentially said that icings, in general, do not need to be refrigerated. The professor (a food scientist from UT) said I could send a sample and they would test it to see if it needed to be kept refrigerated or if I would need to add a bit more sugar, but that the reason that cakes and sweets are allowed to be sold at farmer's markets is because they are considered (and I can't remember the exact wording they used) to have a very low chance of carrying any food borne diseases or worrysome bacteria.

I used this recipe last night and it is fantastic...

1/2 C butter
1/2 C shortening (Kroger brand)
16oz. of cream cheese
1 pkg (just the powder) of dream whip
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon flavor
4 lbs powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt

I whipped the room temp butter, shortening, cream cheese with the vanilla, lemon, and dream for 15 minutes. Added the powdered sugar and salt and whipped for another 20. It was very stiff at first but ended up like a whipped dream.

Light and fluffy and wonderful on red velvet.

I have made this before (often!) and leave it on the counter top (on the cake or cupcakes) in tupperware and never had a problem with it going bad or making anyone ill. Usually a week is as long as it lasts. I do freeze the extras though.