To most Americans, “cream cheese” is savory. You put it on bagels, perhaps with egg, capers, or cured fish. You don’t put it on dessert, right?
Except “cream cheese frosting” is a (delicious!) thing, most traditionally for carrot and red velvet cake. I think this incongruity is holding cream cheese frosting back, and it needs better branding. Specifically, I think we should call it “cheesecake frosting”. It’s essentially no-bake cheesecake already, and it’s reasonably close in flavor and texture since they’re both mostly cream cheese with sugar and fat.
Looking online I do see a few people talking about cheesecake frosting, and they’re all using it just to mean cream cheese frosting.
On the other hand, I think whipped cream cheese on an Oreo is decent imitation of cheesecake with an Oreo crust, so I’m not sure I’m the best person to listen to here.
In my experience, everyone already understands that cream cheese frosting is (a) sweet, and (b) delicious. I have never met anyone, nor heard of anyone, who was somehow under the impression that cream cheese frosting is in any way incongruous or weird.
In other words, as far as I can tell, the problem you are describing is completely nonexistent.
I used to think this. I was in a café reading cake description and the word “cheese” in the Carrot Cake description for the icing really switched me away. I don’t want a cake with cheese flavor—sounds gross. Only later did I learn Carrot Cake was amazing.
So it has happened at least once.
But is this because you didn’t know what cream cheese was?
Correct.
Strange; I’ve run into this multiple times. Most memorably, when my five year old younger sister was really upset that her birthday cake has cream cheese frosting—“cream cheese goes on bagels”. At a time when she already had had and liked cheesecake.
… but that means she learned what it was at age 5. I’d assume most people learn between about 4 and 8, maybe 10...
Um, no, not particularly?
Why would I do that to myself? I don’t feel my sins deserve that level of punishment.
All the time. Well, in.
I would read that, first, as something you’d put on cheesecake, and, second, in terms of some of the kinds of cheesecake out there that would be, unfortunate as frostings.
Coupled with your heretical views on cupcakes, it does seem to take you out of my preferred circle of advisors on food-related matters...
Perhaps you are not aware of the lox & cream cheese bagel sandwich, a venerable and beloved item of New York City cuisine. If you have not had this food, then you are missing out on a singular life experience, and you are spiritually impoverished by this lack. I suggest rectifying this omission forthwith.
I am aware of it and I regret to say that I’ve tasted it...