Cream Cheese Filling Recipe

This cream cheese filling recipe is simple and delicious. It’s a perfect recipe to have on hand for when a recipe calls for a cream cheese filling. Adding lemon zest gives it a subtle brightness that will enhance the flavor of many baked goods.

One of my favorite ways to use this filling is in coffee cakes and muffins. Check out how I use it in my Pumpkin Cream Cheese Coffee Cake. You can also play around with the zest adding lime or orange zest instead depending on the recipe.

Makes about 2 cups of cream cheese filling. This recipe can easily be doubled if needed.

Ingredients for cream cheese filling:

• 8oz cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbls all purpose flour
• 2 tsp fresh lemon zest (optional, but highly recommended)

How to make the filling:

• 1.) Put the room temperature cream cheese into the bowl of stand mixer.
• 2.) Add the powdered sugar and whisk together using the whisk attachment until smooth.
• 3.) Add the egg, vanilla, flour and lemon zest and continue whisking until well incorporated and smooth.
• 4.) Bake according to the directions of whatever recipe you are adding it to.

Notes about the ingredients:

• Make sure that your cream cheese is at room temperature! This is really important. If you use cold cream cheese straight from the fridge the ingredients will not blend together well and you will get a lumpy filling instead of nice smooth one. It will take about 2 hours for the cream cheese to come to room temperature depending on how warm your kitchen is. This takes a little planning ahead and I will actually put a reminder in my phone to remind me to pull the cream cheese out in advance.
• It’s also a good idea to have your egg at room temp as well. This is not as important as the cream cheese being at room temp but I have found that having all the ingredients the same temp just helps with blending.

Check out how I used this cream cheese filling recipe in my Pumpkin Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.

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