This 2 Ingredient Maple Cream Cheese Is Just Frosting.
Maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s because I’m a man of habit – habits can be chaotic, but they’re habits nonetheless – but I’ve spent a hell of a lot of time getting back into my groove after the uniquely chaotic first week of March. Several balls were thrown that week, including this ingenious comment from a very smart reader that I intended to check out immediately but forgot about until now:
But now that life is back to normal (or what I consider normal), I finally made this maple and cream cheese concoction.
The taste is phenomenal, the process is simple, and my only regret is that I didn’t do more. Mix 2 tablespoons of maple syrup with every 8 ounces of room temperature full-fat cream cheese, and you have a substance that falls somewhere between breakfast spread and real frosting. It’s very sweet and slightly tangy, with just the right amount of salt (from the cream cheese) and a hint of minerality (from the syrup).
You can mix the ingredients with an electric mixer (for a fluffier texture), an immersion mix, or a food processor (for a silkier, denser result), but make sure you clean out the bowl between blends and allow the cream cheese to fully come to room temperature before adding the maple. . Cold cream cheese will stick together—you can see tiny lumps in mine because I’m an impatient person—and you want your cheese to be smooth and shiny.
After mixing, you can drizzle it on pancakes with cinnamon buns (or regular pancakes), spread on an English muffin, or use as a frosting for a sheet or snack cake. It doesn’t have enough texture to cover the sides of a layer cake, but would be excellent on top of a carrot cake, pound cake, or any other low-key cake that needs a last-minute frosting.