Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Buttercream

This is the BEST caramel buttercream! It’s slightly salty from the salted caramel sauce, a little tangy from the cream cheese, and has the perfect silky smooth texture. It can be spread on sheet cakes, piped onto cupcakes, swirled onto sugar cookies, or even used to stack and decorate layer cakes.

What Makes this Caramel Buttercream the BEST?

• Texture. This salted caramel cream cheese buttercream is so silky smooth and absolutely perfect.
• Salty-Sweet. The salted caramel and salted butter mixed with super sweet powdered sugar create the perfect balance of salty and sweet.
• 4 ingredients. The only ingredients you need for this recipe are – salted caramel sauce (homemade or store bought) butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.
• Adaptable for different desserts. You can adjust the thickness and stability of this caramel buttercream very easily. Add extra powdered sugar to thicken it up for piping onto cupcakes, or add a little extra caramel sauce so its super soft and silky to spread on top of cakes or cookies.
• Stability. The high ratio of sugar to fat in this recipe allows the buttercream to become safe to keep at room temp for several days – so it’s great for making ahead!

Ingredients

• Butter. With so few ingredients, the butter flavor will really come through so I recommend using a high quality European style butter like Kerrygold, Danish Creamery, Plugra, etc.. You can use salted or unsalted butter – just keep in mind that the salted caramel will add saltiness to the frosting already, so choosing unsalted will allow you more control over the salt level. I like a salty frosting so I used Kerrygold Salted Butter.
• Cream Cheese. Again, with so few ingredients the flavor and quality of each ingredient will come through so I recommend using full fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese.
• Powdered Sugar. This is an American-style buttercream recipe, so we’ll use powdered sugar.
• Salted Caramel Sauce. You can find my recipe for salted caramel sauce here, or feel free to use a store bought variety. Just be sure that whichever caramel you choose, it has a thin and pourable consistency even at room temperature.

How to Make Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Buttercream

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the room temperature butter and cream cheese on medium-high speed for 10 minutes. Every 2-3 minutes stop the mixer to scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl. The mixture should thicken and become perfectly smooth – almost looking like buttercream already.

Add the powdered sugar half at a time, then mix on the lowest speed for 3 minutes after each addition. Then, mix in the salted caramel sauce on the lowest speed until combined. The caramel should be every so slightly warm when you add it – NOT HOT. If it’s hot it will melt the butter, but if it’s just SLIGHTLY warm it will help to create the perfect silky texture.

Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Buttercream FAQs

• Does it have to be refrigerated? No, the high sugar to fat ratio in this caramel buttercream makes it shelf stable and able to sit at room temperature for several days. Remember that American-style buttercream will form a crust when exposed to air, so if you’re making it ahead and planning to frost your dessert later, make sure to store it in an air tight container.
  • You CAN store it in the fridge if making ahead. Just follow the recipe as written, then store in an airtight container in the fridge. When ready to serve, allow it to come to room temperature (still covered!) on the counter for 1-3 hours, then rewhip it in your mixer on the lowest speed until it’s nice and silky smooth again!
• Can I omit the cream cheese? Yes – If you’d like to make a regular all-butter American buttercream, just replace the cream cheese with an equal amount of butter.
• Does this buttercream crust? Yes. All American-style buttercream (buttercream made with butter and powdered sugar) will form a crust. This caramel buttercream stays pretty soft due to the cream cheese and caramel sauce, but will still form a light crust. It would be safe to stack frosted cookies 2-3 high after the crust is formed.

Tips for Perfect Buttercream

• Mixer Speed Matters! When you’re creaming the butter and cream cheese alone for 10 minutes, you want the mixer speed HIGH. Once you add the powdered sugar and caramel sauce, you want the mixer speed on LOW. Reducing the speed after adding the sugar will prevent whipping any extra air into it which causes air bubbles in your frosting and prevents it from being perfectly silky and smooth.
• Use high quality butter and cream cheese! There’s only 4 ingredients in this recipe and there’s no baking or cooking involved so the flavor of the butter and cream cheese will really come through! My go to choices are Kerrygold Butter and Philadelphia Cream Cheese.
• Add the powdered sugar in 2 total additions. A lot of buttercream recipes will instruct you to add the powdered sugar 1 C at a time. I think that’s unnecessary and time consuming. No matter how much powdered sugar your recipe calls for, just add half at a time mixing on the lowest speed for 3 minutes after each addition and your buttercream will be perfect.
• Thinning / Thickening – You can easily adjust the consistency of your buttercream for your specific preference and needs. Remember that you can thicken with powdered sugar and thin with room temperature heavy cream.
• For the silkiest buttercream – My best kept buttercream secret is warming your thinning agent every so slightly. In most recipes that would be the heavy cream – in this one it’s the caramel sauce. You don’t want it HOT – that would melt your butter. But, if it’s ever so slightly warm, it will create that silky smooth luscious buttercream texture that we love to see!

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