If this recipe ends up making more than you need, you could cut it in
half, but then you wouldn't have any left over to smear on your toast with jam, or on biscuits or on graham crackers, or to just lick off a spoon. If you ask me, extra frosting is never a bad thing.


Ingredients

• 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste (optional)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, plus more to taste (optional, or make it fancy with seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean)
• 3 to 4 tablespoons of grade B maple syrup along with the vanilla

Directions
1 In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or in a medium bowl using a handheld mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth.

2 Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the confectioners sugar, salt, and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Taste and add more salt or vanilla (if desired).

Makes 2-1/2 cups.

Main image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com.

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Excerpted from by The Sugar Cube by Kir Jensen, with Danielle Centoni Copyright © 2012 by Kir Jensen. Photography by Lisa Warninger. Excerpted by permission of Chronicle Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.