I use a recipe that is delicious but requires refrigeration. I would love to find a recipe that can be out at room temp.

The only other recipe I have tried is Decorator's Cream Cheese Frosting (On here) and it barely tastes like cream cheese.

Thanks!

I think all cream cheese frosting can be left out for a little bit, but they all need to be refrigerated.

Earlenescakes.com/recipes has a recipe for cream cheese icing that crusts and which she leaves out for a week with no problems of spoiling. I've made it, but as you said it doesn't really taste like cream cheese. I just bought Cheesecake Flavoring from LorAnnoils which is highly concentrated, tried it with a couple of droppers in my icing and I really liked the flavor, it was not artificial. There was another recipe on here from 2009 that sounded great, but I didn't try it. It also crusts and was left out the day before the wedding with no problems according to the post:
1 1/3 C Veg Shortening
2 8 oz blocks cream cheese
3 tsp clear vanilla
3 tsp butter extract
(can add 2 tsp almond or creme bouquet)
3 tbs meringue powder
1/3 tsp popcorn salt
3-3.5 lbs powdered sugar
1/4 c plain powdered creamer dissolved in 1/4 c very hot water, or can use flavored creamers

I personally make the cream cheese frosting and use liquid flavored coffee creamers, have used white chocolate caramel, white chocolate mocha, cinnamon bun, pumpkin spice, etc., and omit the plain creamer and water. I've used this with Earlene's recipe. When I use the flavored creamers I only add vanilla and sometimes a tsp of the butter extract. Just started using the LorAnnoils and bought the Cheesecake, English toffee, Butter Vanilla Emulsion and Princess Cake and Cookie Emulsion. I'm anxious to try them all!

Earlene can leave it out all she wants, but the HD will say refrigerate. You don't want to say anything to a client contrary to HD guidelines. It opens you up for liability.

You ca go on the dairy board and try to conduct a scientific experiment, deducing the amount of moisture/sugar/dairy, but you really can't get it right.

What you do at home is not what you should do for a client or tell a client. This goes for serving crowds you don't know too. For example, making your best friend's wedding cake.

HD and food safety standard to the food industry will instruct you that after four hours, it must be discarded, not put away.

Let's use the scenario that a stomach flu is going around and it hits people at the wedding. They can speculate that it was the food. If you are questioned, even though it turns out to be the flu, do you want to report that you used proper food safety measures, standard to the industry and compliant with HD, or do you want to say that, "everyone else does it".

My suggestion is to follow the rules when dealing with the public and keep yourself above reproach in matters of food safety. It's not worth the potential cost for a bunch of strangers. You can either choose to eliminate these flavors, or find a way to keep them cool.

I do cream cheese all the time. But I make sure, if the whole cake cannot be refrigerated on site, that I have a way to keep the tiers cool myself and stack close to serving time. This will limit some decorating styles. I also use pastry cream and many other things that need to be refrigerated. There is always a way if someone really wants a refrigerated ingredient.

I use individual coolers for each tier, some turned on their sides to accomodate bigger cakes. The cakes are in a cake box. One time the cooler wouldn't close, so I made a way to cover and insulate the crack. I use the packs of fake ice and the hard plastic fake ice containers packed around the box. This is for traveling and when a refrigerator isn't available. I have even let my customers use my coolers and ice to transport. Another time I used towels and plastic on a very large tier. I had it so cold and packed with ice that the IMBC was hard hours later.

People only come to me for fine ingredients in scratch cakes, so I had to find a way to make this work. Many of the ingredients I offer are not offered elsewhere because of the refrigeration issue.

Another thread.

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-582086-.html

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should stray from what is recommended, I'm just saying that there are tried and true recipes that don't get refrigerated and are just fine according to the websites. Even though the recipe says you can leave it out, I still refrigerate my cakes when I frost them with these recipes. I had a problem about 6 months ago with my icing not sticking to my cake after I crumb coated it and refrigerated it, using cream cheese icing. I called a local decorator who has 40 years of experience in the business, she said "take those cakes out of the refrigerator and bring them to room temp." I told her I had used the cream cheese frosting to crumb coat and my frosting for the final design was cream cheese. She said, don't worry, they will be fine. I think it is because I froze the cakes and then filled them and crumb coated and then put into the frig to thaw over night, they were cold enough to withstand the cream cheese frosting and needed time to dry. After, I put back in the frig but she said I didn't need to. It even had chocolate mousse filling using whipped topping, chocolate pudding, and heavy whipping cream. I trusted her wisdom and it was just fine!

Iko, that's nice that you trust someone. But that someone isn't the FDA or the Dairy Board, or the local HD. They all have rules, not suggestions. And "according to the websites" is not how we responsibly handle public safety. What you do at your home is one thing. Selling or feeding the public puts you at a greater level of responsibility and a much greater level of liability.

Anyone who really wants to know, even if you don't bake for others, just call your local HD and ask the question. They will give you the same answer I just did. It standardized. Most areas use only a handful of different courses to teach food safety. They, from what I have seen, are similar in their teachings because it all comes from the same official and .gov sites.