Strawberry rhubarb cream cheese

This strawberry rhubarb cream cheese has a subtle, but noticeable fresh fruit flavor. I've added as much flavor as possible while preserving the thick, spreadable cream cheese texture.

Jump to:

• Flavor
• Recipe
• Strawberry rhubarb cream cheese
• Why use a homemade strawberry rhubarb sauce?
• Cream cheese consistency
• Storage
• The best bagel flavors for this cream cheese
• More resources & recipes

Flavor

The only way to add more flavor is to use dried strawberry and rhubarb powders. I didn't use those in this recipe because they are expensive and most people don't have them readily available.

Instead, the cream cheese is flavored with a quick and easy homemade strawberry rhubarb sauce. Jam can also be used but the cream cheese will be sweeter with a less concentrated flavor.

The cream cheese can be mixed with a food processor, hand mixer, or even a fork. Let's get to it!

Recipe

Why use a homemade strawberry rhubarb sauce?

A store-bought jam can add flavor to cream cheese with little time or effort. While that is extremely valuable in our busy lives, it won't add as much flavor as making your own sauce.

A homemade strawberry rhubarb sauce has more flavor and less sugar, which benefits more than just your health. As more sugar is added to a fruit sauce like this, it masks the fruit's natural flavors.

Jam requires a lot of sugar in order for it to properly gel. I'd go so far as to say most jam recipes require an absurd about of sugar. Most jam recipes have about ¾ cup of sugar per little 8-ounce jar! Another example is that each tablespoon of Bonne Maman strawberry preserves has 1 tablespoon of added sugar (similar to Smuckers too).

Instead, I use a fraction of the sugar for the strawberry rhubarb sauce since I don't need the sugar to help it thicken. Instead, I thicken the sauce with cornstarch (which can't be used in canning) to avoid a runny cream cheese.

In the end, use what you have (or have time for). A cream cheese made with jam will come out tasting sweet, with hints of fruit flavor. However, using the homemade strawberry-rhubarb sauce produces a stronger, but still subtle flavor.

Cream cheese consistency

Cream cheese starts out with it's nice, thick consistency. It's thick enough to handle extra liquid from fruit purees in limited amounts. Too much liquid turns the cream cheese watery with a runny consistency.

First, it's important to buy cream cheese in a block form, not the spreadable or whipped cream cheese in tubs. Those start out with a thinner consistency.

Full fat cream cheese also stands up better to added liquids than reduced fat versions. So if you prefer the low fat varieties, start by adding only half the amount of strawberry rhubarb mixture to the cream cheese.

Once cream cheese turns runny, I found it near impossible to save, other than adding in another block of cream cheese. I tried the following methods:

• Corn starch - didn't work, I'd have to add too much
• Buttermilk powder - I use this to stabilize cream cheese frosting for layered cakes and assumed it would work. It didn't. I had to add too much to thicken the cream cheese back up that the buttermilk flavor was too strong and not good!
• Butter - another trick is to add butter. The higher fat content could thicken it back up, in theory. It didn't work out great and then had a buttery flavor, which I wasn't looking for!

The lesson here is to add the strawberry rhubarb flavor slowly to the cream cheese. Mix in the food processor after each small addition. If it starts to look like it might be getting too thin, stop.

Storage

Store your freshly made strawberry cream cheese in the fridge, covered, for a week. Any leftover sauce will last for several weeks in the fridge and is perfect for an ice cream topping.

The best bagel flavors for this cream cheese

While delicious on a plain bagel, a couple other choices really stand out: cinnamon raisin and blueberry.

Cinnamon and rhubarb are perfect pairs, so this type of bagel was a natural choice. The raisins add an extra sweetness with a flavor that is also quite complementary.

Blueberry bagels sometimes have a very strong and distinct smell - I love everything about them. I was worried that this strawberry rhubarb cream cheese would conflict with the bagel flavor, but they actually enhanced each other. The flavors mingled together and it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, but in a good way.

More resources & recipes

Try other fruit-flavored cream cheese recipes:

• Strawberry cream cheese (uses fresh strawberries) from The Recipe Critic
• Blueberry cream cheese that first cooks down the blueberries, from Sugar Free Londoner
• Peach & honey cream cheese (using fresh peaches) from Cleverly Simple

If you love the combination of strawberries and rhubarb, try these strawberry rhubarb oatmeal bars next. The diced fruit is added to the top of an easy, one-bowl oatmeal crust, then the whole thing is baked.

I also have a collection over over 75 strawberry recipes with really fun twists on strawberry shortcake, salads, and preserving. The rhubarb recipe collection mixes fresh stalks with other seasonal fruit as well as savory recipes paired with meat.

Also follow me on Pinterest for more seasonal recipes that I make and save from other sources.

Get more recipe ideas to use up fruits and vegetables when they are in season each month.