Heavenly Cream Cheese Icing

My husband Jim thinks this is pure heaven. He insists that it will make ANYTHING taste good, but he prefers it on Aldi's cinnamon rolls (a large tray is only $2.99 and when warmed up, they give Cinnamonster a run for their money) and with my icing? DA BOMB!  This is also awesome on cupcakes and regular cakes. I add cinnamon for my cinnamon banana cupcakes. You can add melted chocolate for kick butt chocolate icing. Pureed strawberries? Yes! Anything, really.

This is the basic recipe.

1 stick of unsalted butter
1 package of 1/3 less fat cream cheese (Aldi often has it for $.79/package)
2-3 cups of sifted powdered sugar (depending on your taste)
1 tsp real vanilla extract

Very important - let the butter & cream cheese sit at room temperature for a while. They need to be soft. Get your hand mixer (I WISH I had a big Kitchenaid mixer, but I only have the little handheld version) and whip the cream cheese & butter together until incorporated. Scrape the sides & beat again. Make sure it's smooooooooth.  Add the vanilla & powdered sugar (a little at a time) and keep beating it.

Now, it's fantastic as it is and you will want to just dip your fingers in it. Try to resist. Put it in a plastic tub and you can keep it in the fridge for a week or two. I know it won't last that long. Or you can add in 2 tsp of cinnamon or 6 oz of melted semisweet chocolate....whatever you like. I promise it will be tasty. Heck, you could probably add cayenne pepper to it and it would STILL be good.

Here is my lame attempt at a Valentine's Day cake. With the famous icing. I cheated on the cake because my grandmother sent me boxes of white cake mix (she got a good deal...saving runs in the family, I guess)  -  I added cinnamon to the mix to jazz it up a bit. With the vanilla cream cheese frosting? Oh baby. It was guuuuuud.

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