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This delicious low-carb sugar-free cream cheese frosting is smooth, creamy and can be topped over any kind of dessert.
A Cream Cheese Frosting without Butter
When I make cakes, I usually like to use a buttercream icing like the one I used in my low carb chocolate birthday cake. They have always been one of my favorite kinds of frosting.
But for cakes like a red velvet cake, gluten free black forest cake, low carb cinnamon rolls, a gingerbread cake ,a low carb carrot cake, and my healthy zucchini cake, I usually like to stick with a cream cheese frosting without butter.
I preferred using a combination of cream cheese and heavy cream for this sugar free cream cheese frosting recipe because it doesn't make it as "oily" and "fatty" as when you make it with butter.
You can always taste that buttery oily taste in buttercream icing that just a couple of tablespoons of it and I usually get sick of it.
A cream cheese frosting without butter for me kind of tastes like ice cream. Oh, you can totally freeze this recipe and make the most amazing cheesecake ice cream ever.
I actually froze my low carb pumpkin cupcakes with this cream cheese frosting and ate them as frozen treats!
Just so you know, the possibilities are endless! You could even eat it with the spoon to make yourself a nice and easy fat bomb.
If you would like a dairy-free version, check out my dairy free whipped cream recipe! You can use that frosting on any type of cakes you want. It's made with coconut cream, erythritol and stevia.
You can also make a chocolate version of this recipe using my sugar free chocolate frosting recipe!
Best Sweetened with Erythritol and Stevia
You might be wondering how you can make cream cheese frosting without the use of powdered sugar. You simply need to use a low carb alternative. There are many options for sweeteners out there, but my favorite ones have always been erythritol and stevia powder.
Make Your Own Powdered Erythritol
It's important that you use powdered erythritol so you avoid any grainy texture in your sugar-free cream cheese frosting. I usually like to make my own powdered erythritol as it's just so simple. You can find bags of powdered erythritol, but it tends to be more expensive than the granulated kind so I usually make my own.
You simply need to add any amount of granulated erythritol to a powerful blender. I use my Blendtec and blend for about 30 seconds. You should have a nice powdery substance that can be used instead of powdered sugar in any recipes.
I usually like to use a combination of erythritol and stevia in most of my recipes because erythritol in large amounts can cause stomach problems and give that annoying cooling taste in the mouth.
If I were to use erythritol alone to sweeten this recipe, I would need to use double or triple the amount in order to achieve the same sweetness as stevia. Also, you would have this huge cooling effect in your mouth afterwards.
Stevia alone wouldn't make the frosting silky like a normal sugar version, so adding the erythritol helps make the perfect consistency and the stevia helps with the sweetness.
I like to use erythritol and stevia because they don't raise blood sugar, are 0 on the glycemic index and have zero carbs.
If you don't have erythritol and stevia, you can totally use any other kind of sweetener that you want, just make sure to count the added carbs.
You could substitute the erythritol for xylitol, just make sure you don't have any dogs at home as it can be deadly for them.
Stevia powder can be swapped out for monk fruit powder in the same quantity to achieve the same sweetness.
Tricks to a fluffy cream cheese frosting
There are times where if you overbeat your cream cheese, you might make it too liquid or if you use room temperature cream cheese or even warm cream cheese, then it'll be too soft and it'll melt on you. If you add warm heavy whipping cream, then it just won't whip or get frosty. Here are a few of my tricks to a fluffy cream cheese frosting.
Follow these steps and you're guaranteed to always have amazing sugar-free cream cheese frosting!
- Always use cold ingredients. Make sure your cream cheese and heavy cream are coming straight out of the fridge and have not been sitting at room temperature.
- Chill your bowl and beaters. This will help stiffen the frosting by not warming it up when you beat the cream.
- If you make a lemon-flavored frosting, make sure to add the liquid at the end and in a small quantity. Adding too much lemon juice will result in a runny frosting. It's best to use lemon zest. Same thing for vanilla. Add it at the end when the heavy cream has whipped. It'd be even better to use vanilla bean or a bean paste as you won't have to increase the liquid ratio.
- Do not over beat your cream cheese. Just about 20 to 30 seconds should be enough to soften it.
- Add your heavy cream in small batches. The more you add, the more it'll splatter around.
- If you want an even thicker sugar-free cream cheese frosting, you have three options.
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- Either add more powdered erythritol, a little at a time and continue to beat until desired consistency. Make sure to test as it might get too sweet or create that cooling effect.
- Or, pop it back in the fridge for it to cool down. It'll harden the longer it stays in the fridge.
- As a last resort, you could always add a teaspoon or two of arrowroot flour or tapioca starch. One teaspoon doesn't have that many carbs in the grand scheme of things and shouldn't affect your daily carb intake by that much.
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Recipe Card
Sugar Free Cream Cheese Frosting
Equipment Needed
- hand mixer
Ingredients
- 16 oz cream cheese (2 blocks of Philly)
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- 6 tbsp powdered erythritol
- ¼ tsp stevia powder (or monk fruit powder)
- 1 vanilla bean (or vanilla essence)
Instructions
- Make an incision in your vanilla bean. Run the back of a knife or spoon along the bean to scoop out all the seeds. Keep for later.
- Add the cream cheese to a bowl and whip with your beaters until softened. This should take 20-30 seconds.
- Add the erythritol to combine.
- Pour in the heavy cream in 4-5 batches. This is so that the cream doesn't splatter everywhere.
- Beat for a few minutes, until the frosting starts to thicken up.
- Once it's thickened up, add the stevia and vanilla to the frosting and mix to combine.
- Your frosting is now ready to serve. You can put it in a piping bag to pipe on cakes, spread it with a knife or put it in a Tupperware and keep ion the fridge for later use.
Nutritional information is provided through calculations made on fatsecret.com. They are approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on mypcoskitchen.com. Sugar alcohols are included in the fiber count. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber (which include sugar alcohols).
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Suzanne
Hi, can you omit the erythritol and the stevia? Since I would like to do it for my son's smash cake. Thanks ☺️
Rose Byrd
Delicious 😋
margaret jean mcmillan
can i use whipping cream or table cream
Ana
Can you please tell me if I could use, dairy free cream cheese and heavy cream? I have a grandson who has milk allergy. Thank you, Ana
Christina
Hi Ashley. I like the ingredients for the recipe but if I wanted to make it a chocolate cream cheese frosting, how much cocoa powder would I use?
Thank you.
Eva W
I haven't made it yet but just wanted to say to those who don't do metric --- in this day and age of google it's easy enough to find the conversion to ours. I don't do metric either but i'm not going to bash the the person kind enough to share something good with us over it. Thanks for the recipe!
Nina in CLEV
I just made this for a diabetic friend for who I made a 'heart healthy' carrot cake (sorry I didn't see yours until it was done already) and it is a lovely taste and texture..I also found the expense of pure erythritol a bit over my budget so I swapped "erythritol-laden" MONK FRUIT and it came out fine w/o that weird cooling mouth-feel the erythri. sometimes takes on.. Unfortunately, because I don't do a ton of baking myself I don't own an electric beater so used a larger. heavy whisk...so I think maybe I might've overdone the beating (as you PLAINLY warned us NOT to do!)...The fact also that it's a real hot day here in the american Midwest and my apartment is up a few lfloors so even though I kept all ingredients refrigerated until the last minute, my/ your delicious frosting wasn't the right consistency to spread..sadly. Instead of moping, I'll just go on and scrape this into a jar instead of frosting cake before and chill it in refrigerator, then bring over the cake with "optional" sugar-free DELISH frosting , ON THE SIDE! I grated some fresh orange rind (just a little as you suggested, and dead last) into this and that was literally the "icing on the cake"!! So good, thanks for this one, I'm gonna have to make more homemade, low sugar frosting since I myself am borderline diabetic but LOOOVE frosting that's not so sweet..
Mira
Oh making frosting in hot weather is definitely a challenge, but without a beater even harder as the cream and cheese sits too long in the heat and melts away resulting in a liquid mess. If you can for the future I'd invest in a hand mixer, there's some really cheap ones out there and they do the job!
Precious Miller
Laura wanted to let you know they make plant base butter .
No dairy or milk .
It's by Melt Organic
Cold pressed plant Butter
Allergen free
None dairy I buy this all the time u can look it up in line what it looks like.. taste just like butter but it's not..and good for you too anyone.
Enjoy your day 💖
Laura
Hi! I´a diabetic person and I was looking for a no sugar no butter cream cheese frosting and I'm trying yours tomorrow! I was wondering if erythritol may be substituted for sucralose because 1 kilo of powdered erythritol is over a hundred dollars here in Argentina and I could only find it online and I don't know if the supplier is trustful as to the quality of the product. On a different matter, can the no butter recipe be frozen as the buttery one? Thank you!!
Mira
Hello Laura, sucralose can be substituted for erythritol. Have you checked iherb? I buy all my products from there and they ship anywhere in the world. 1kg of erythritol is 922$ARS = 20$USD on iherb. https://ar.iherb.com/pr/Now-Foods-Real-Food-Organic-Erythritol-1-lb-454-g/64815
Beverly
We do you get powered erythritol? I’ve never heard of it!
Mira
There are many brands on Amazon including Sukrin, So Nourished, Swerve, etc. If you don’t have any, simply add erythritol to a powerful blender and blitz it for 30 seconds. You’ll then have powdered “sugar”.
mic
How much boiling water do you use.
Mira
Hi Mic, what do you mean? There is no boiling water in this recipe.
Pammi
Can i use liquid stevia concentrate?
Mira
I'm sure you can. Just taste test with your finger before!
Beth garcia
I don’t like the after taste of Stevia, what other artificial sweeteners could I use?
Mira
Stevia isn't artificial, but I'm not really familiar with artificial sweeteners so I can't give you advice for that. I just use natural ones. You can use monk fruit extract powder (natural sweetener) in equal amounts.
harold
if you write the receipt in american people might be able to read it im from michigan i dont do metric sorry.
Mira
There's a US Imperial button right under the ingredients. If you click on it, it'll convert it.
Judy
I don't have a button to convert, why not just put both in the recipe?
Mira
It says METRIC - US CUPS in big letters for you to convert. Just on top of the ingredients.
Mimi
Sry! I tried to give 5 stars but it posted b4 I could correct.
Gramma11
Can you give the equivalence of g = cup? Thanks, would love to try this.
Mira
Hi Gramma11, it's like two bricks of philly cream cheese. According to google, 200g is 1 cup so about 2 cups of cream cheese. For the erythritol it's about 10 tbsp. I'm not too sure, I don't use cups in baking and sweets.
Donna
Could always purchase a food scale. Great for other recipies and it converts.
Carla
Where do you get erythritol?
Mira
I put a link in the ingredients list, but I usually get it on amazon or iherb.
Shannon Morris
You can probably find it under the name brand "Swerve" in a Whole Foods or Fresh Market. For bulk I always order online on Amazon or elsewhere.
In a pinch (if you don't have a Whole Foods), you can buy Truvia packets or Splenda Naturals. Both are a combination of erythritol and stevia
Jan
I think you can get it ar Whole Foods and some health stores.
judy
how much vanilla extract did you use ?
Mira
Hi Judy, a tsp should be enough.
Melissa
What kind of cream cheese do you use? The lowest I have ever found in carbs is the 1/3 reduce fat Philadelphia cream cheese, which is 1 carb per Tbs. On your nutritional chart I see it is a 2 Tbs serving but only only .65 grams of carbs.
Mira
Philadephia cream cheese is 1g of carb per 2tbsp. http://www.kraftrecipes.com/products/philadelphia-original-cream-che-1774.aspx
But this recipe includes whipped cream which makes the serving bigger which is why the carbs are lower than 1g, it doesn't contain exactly 2 tbsp of cream cheese, more like 1 plus the whipping cream.
Brad
Just made this and topped it over some cupcakes I made yesterday. SO DAMN GOOD!
Helene Nicole Richard
Wonderful!
Lydia
Can I use vanilla powder instead of a bean?
Mira
I'm not sure what vanilla powder is, but you can use vanilla essence no problem.
Sarah Denham
Looks delicious. Thanks for sharing!
Lena Fallica
I can substitute vanilla extract for the vanilla bean? Vanilla beans are too expensive for just a few in the bottle.
Mira
Yes, of course! I'll add a note in the recipe!