Red Velvet Cake Icing Recipe (2024)

Cream cheese frosting is only the go-to in the North. In the South, where this cake originates, the standard and preferred frosting is an ermine frosting, sometimes called a boiled-milk frosting. It is extraordinary with a true red velvet and can be found on NYT Cooking with a search. Enjoy!

Makes enough for at least three layers.

This frosting is not an icing that will travel. If you are making a red Velvet cake to take to a party, stick with a traditional cream cheese frosting. The consistency is more like a heavy whipping cream, but the flavor is good.

I made the whipped cream the night before I was going to frost my cake. By the time I served it, the whipped cream had gone mushy and it was a big fail. Lesson learned.

As advertised! Pillows of delicious slightly tangy cream … cheese … cream.

Really love the mixture of traditional cream cheese frosting and whipped cream to lighten it up. This also helps if you make it in advance- you can pull it straight from the fridge and start frosting without having to let it soften at all. Make sure your cream cheese-mascarpone mixture is REALLY soft before adding the whipped cream, though; otherwise you end up with chunks :)

This is a recipe for an icing, not a frosting. If you read carefully, it shouldn’t be disappointing. This is intended to go on the outside and top of the cake. It is not built to be a frosting in between layers of cake. I made it today and it came out tangy and light. It should hold up with a little refrigeration, but it is not thick enough to be treated as the frosting for a cake, nor is that my intention. :)

Since cream cheese comes in 8 oz blocks and mascarpone comes in 8 oz containers, I added 8 oz of goat cheese (to round out the 12 and 12) at the recommendation of the beet red velvet cake recipe in order to use complete packages of everything and it's deliciously tangy.

NYT has always given me great dessert recipes. Unfortunately this frosting was meh. Not very thick or flavorful. The RVC was also not very good.

The only frosting for RVC is Ermine frosting. You can look it up.

Delicious cake and awesome icing! Bake for 25 minutes, not the recommended 40-45 minutes.

Make sure you bake cake 25 minutes, not the recommended 40-45 minutes! Delicious cake and frosting!

Softened the cream cheese ahead of time. Then whipped all ingredients together until stiff. I believe if I didn’t do this it would have turned out runny like other people in the comments are saying. Ingredients are not shelf stable so, keep in mind the icing will have to be refrigerated afterwards.

Made this yesterday. Excellent with help from reader who said use cold ingredients. I also only used 8 ozs of mascarpone cheese as that what was in my tub. Made lots of very yummy frosting and light tasting without a lot of sweetness.

The most delicious frosting! This cake and frosting recipe has become the most requested for birthdays and special occasions in my family. I have also used this to make multilayer cakes that are draped in fondant. As long as I use dowels and cardboard layers, it works well. Make sure the heavy cream is cold when whipped. I whip it until it holds its peaks but isn't hard.

Soooo this icing is not shelf stable to my disappointment.

Disappointing. I followed these instructions to the letter but the frosting was melty and not flavorful in spite of refrigerating this for almost 4 hours. Almost impossible to frost the cake. This was my first red velvet cake (using the same author’s cake recipe). I will seek out a better frosting recipe for the next red velvet birthday cake.