Cupcake Frosting Question

[Cakey]

Hiya!

Let's see if I can post in here yet.

I'm looking for different ideas for frostings/toppings for cupcakes that aren't very sweet. Most everything is too sweet for me and my husband.

All ideas are welcomed.

Thanks,
Cakey

[siduri]

cream cheese frostings are not very sweet.
One particularly good one is cream cheese (and butter, optional) beaten well, then add melted white chocolate and beat some more. I'd try two parts cream cheese and one part chocolate. a little vanilla goes well here.
It's nice and soft, not very sweet (or anyway, you can decide how sweet you like it, stop adding the white chocolate when it's good for you.
(I don;t particularly like white chocolate, by the way, but this doesn;t taste like it, it just adds a little stability and a little sweetness.)

[Cakey]

Originally Posted by siduri

cream cheese frostings are not very sweet.
One particularly good one is cream cheese (and butter, optional) beaten well, then add melted white chocolate and beat some more. I'd try two parts cream cheese and one part chocolate. a little vanilla goes well here.
It's nice and soft, not very sweet (or anyway, you can decide how sweet you like it, stop adding the white chocolate when it's good for you.
(I don;t particularly like white chocolate, by the way, but this doesn;t taste like it, it just adds a little stability and a little sweetness.)

Hi Siduri,

Thanks so much for this idea ... I'll try it.

I do LOVE cream cheese anyway ... so this sound really good. Only down point is, husband doesn't like cream cheese ... so need to keep searching for another recipe for him.

Question: I'm sure regular chocolate would work if you wanted chocolate frosting, but what if I wanted another flavor, such as orange, strawberry, or something else? Any ideas how I would do that to this base?

Thanks!
Cakey

[pastrycake]

Hi cakey,
I too like cream cheese frosting but that means gotta refrigerat it right? That tends to make my cakes dry. Could you add flavorings like orange etc if you want different flavors?

I just made a chocolate buttercream which tasted pretty good. You could add some orange flavoring to that I suppose...

I will keep on brainstorming but I am only an amateur, so I do apologize.

[siduri]

The cream cheese frosting doesn;t need to be refrigerated, because the sugar in the chocolate preserves it (it won;t last that long anyway)
also IT DOESN'T TASTE OF CHOCOLATE - or of cream cheese for that matter. I make it all the time and nobody can guess what's in it.
I got the recipe from beranbaum;s cake bible, and she recommends to put lemon instead of vanilla - i prefer vanilla, but no reason you couldn't put grated lemon (or orange zest).

And for my daughter's wedding cake, since she wanted chocolate cake with raspberry, i made the cake bible raspberry reduction and added it to the white chocolate cream cheese frosting for the filling on half of the layers. The others were a dark chocolate-raspberry ganache

and as a matter fo fact, ganache is a very good not sweet frosting. You melt semi sweet chocolate and mix with heavy cream. Either spread as is or cool it completely and then whip. that too doesn;t have to be refrigerated either.

I make one melting semi-sweet chocolate (60-75% cocoa) and adding sour cream, stirring and spreading. Not sweet, creamy, delicious.
Probably a white chocolate ganache would be good too, but i always get that ending up grainy