Rachel Allen Carrot Cake -can't get topping to set

[MathsFiend]

Trying once more to make Rachel Allen's carrot cake from her Bake book. The cake itself is lovely, but I cannot get the cream cheese topping to set! In her book, she says it should be thick, but it always ends up runny for me. Tried again and omitted the orange zest in case it is the oil from that which us the problem, but still coming out runny. Help!

Ingredients are:

250g cream cheese
50g butter
275g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
Zest of one orange

Are you using full fat cream cheese? The reduced fat ones just turn liquid.
Also, is the cake properly cooked?

I agree with full fat cream cheese, and I prefer Philadelphia as it seems less prone to this than supermarket own brands. Also you have to be really gentle with it and don't mix it hard.

Are you using full fat cream cheese? Low fat goes runny on me. You could try chilling it and seeing if it firms up.

I use the one from nigella' chocolaye Guinness cake. It's the nicest cream cheese icing I've had.

80ml double cream lightly whipped, 200g cream cheese, 100g icing sugar. You could add the orange zest and I bet it would be delicious.

Add the icing sugar gradually. Too much icing sugar makes cream cheese icing runnier, not stiffer. Different cheeses have different capacities for sugar, so add it gradually to find the right amount for your cheese. Also better to undermix than overbeat. And have the butter softened and room temperature, but the cream cheese chilled so they mix easily. Too much mixing to incorporate the butter can be lethal.

Cooled not cooked

Ditto the full fat cream cheese. Also: is it actual butter? My sister kept complaining about her icing when she was using Olivio (or whatever it's called now!) instead of butter!!

The Aldi cream cheese is very good for making frosting as it has less water than philly. Or you can press the water out

Yes, full fat cream cheese and real butter. The icing is runny before it even gets to the cake. Might be over mixing the butter..... aargh! I tried chilling it but to no avail.

I've found once it's gone runny that there's nothing that will get it back, sadly.

Are you using Philadelphia? I've always found that when I think " ooh that's on offer, I'll use that" rather than own brand, mine hasn't set

I wonder if the temperature of ingredients (butter and philly) makes some difference.

I disagree with pp who said that the butter should be soft and the cheese cold.

I usually get both to room temperature. When I have used the cheese cold, it has chilled the butter when mixing and I find flecks of butter and runny frosting.

Yeah, used Philidelphia. Recipe said fridge-cold cheese and room temp butter.

Suspect it was overbeating the cheese and butter.i used electric beaters, so think will try just hand mixing next time.