home made cream cheese?

[TortillaDeMaiz]

I'm going to make a carrot cake for my DDs 1st birthday. I need cream cheese for the topping, but I want to avoid Philadelphia. Any ideas about how to make my own, or even better, can you suggest a nice (and not too sweet) topping?

Possibly here. I believe you can use Mascarpone cheese instead of Philly'. Hope this helps..

Genuine Q: Why do you want to avoid Philly? Do you need a sweeter cream cheese? I'm obviously being very dumb here
If that's the case then, as stubbleonchin says, Mascarpone would be delicious

I use sainsbo's cheaper version of Philly to make Nigella's Guinness cake - cream cheese / cream / icing sugar - lovley!

You could leave the cake plain - would still be nice. Or make an orange flavoured butter cream maybe - v sweet though.

Ooh yes, I use that basics version. Only about 58p. I stir it into the children's pasta and add a tinned of flaked tinned mackeral in tomato sauce and peas. Goes down a treat
Sorry, just realised the thread's about a cake

Thanks for your replies. Sorry I didn't post before, but the weekend was a bit chaotic.

fruity: the reason I didn't want to use Philadelphia was that I thought it was full of additives (which apparently it isn't) and also, I can only find the one that comes in a tub and not the one on a block, which I think is more suitable for cooking.

Anyway, I will go for the Philadelphia this time, but maybe next time I will experiment with Mascarpone.