I know you want to frost / ice / decorate that awesomlicious homemade cake that you just baked but the only ingredient at hand is cream – the regular store bought cream. Or maybe you saw a recipe online that you’re dying to make but it says heavy cream in the ingredient list. We all know what’s cream, duh! but the item heavy cream doesn’t ring any bells, ding dong! Fear no more, sit back and read on as today we plan to answer all your silent questions that come to your mind when you’re either grocessory shopping or surfing through recipes online. We hope to empower you with all the knowledge you need to embark on the journey to the sweet, sedative, velvety soft and luscious la-la land of creams.

La-la land of creams

It’s a happy place where all the creams live happily ever after. They don’t fall off cupcakes or melt away. They need not to be saved. As a matter of fact they remain exactly as they are and make everyone happy. It’s a place where no cream expires, curdles, splits and they don’t have heat & humidity issues. They love who they are and they don’t have any consistency problems.

Types of Creams:

1. Real Cream : That naturally separates itself from the milk and floats on top.
2. Half-and-half: Equal parts of light cream and milk. it contains min 12% of milk-fat
3. All-purpose cream / Single Cream / Fresh cream / Cream min 18% milk-fat
4. Whipped cream / whipping cream / light whipping cream min 30- 36% milkfat
5. Heavy Whipped cream / heavy cream min 36% milkfat and more
6. Heavy Whipping cream 36% milk-fat but whips to larger volume, is much lighter and fluffier.
7. Whip Toppings natural and non dairy especially made to remain stable in high temperature and circumstances, some even whip up to 4 times their volume. wooooaa! 40% milkfat or even more

(This above mentioned percentage however varies slightly according to the area you residing.)

Let’s dig a wee bit deeper into what’s cream and which cream we’ll be using in this recipe. First off, let see what makes light cream different from heavy cream or whipping cream. Basically it’s the milk-fat ratio or the butterfat that determines whether the cream is all-purpose cream, heavy cream or heavy whipping cream and so on. The higher the milk-fat ratio, the richer the taste and texture, the better stability of the cream. Meaning cream, either piped over a cupcake or swirled over desserts and pies, high butterfat or milk-fat ratio options are more likely to hold their shape, form and texture despite heat and humidity.

Creams In Pakistan:

Olpers and Milkpak creams are readily available in Pakistan. They need to be chilled overnight in summers and about 2 hours in fridge in winters. In summers however I have found that the olpers cream whips to hard peaks much quickly than Milkpak cream, however milkap cream tastes much richer. Both have a 30% milkfat ratio but for desserts and pies I would select Olpers cream and for cooking like handi and white sauce recipes, i use Milkpak cream. (Post not sponsored)

Nobody wants a puddle of white liquid over their desserts or some freshly iced frosting dripping from the sides of their cake. So following are a couple of key points that you need to remember to make sure you’re not nobody (chuckles). Cream craves attention, treat her nice and she’ll never disappoint you. If not, no matter which cream you’re using you won’t be getting your desired results. That’s why we’ll be discussing how to handle cream in detail next. That’s why you gotta know your cream 🙂

All creams can be whipped, but the ones with higher milk-fat ratio are more likely to remain stable than the others, right, we’ve already established that. And now for the whipping part. Firstly, you can’t whip cream from milk because of the fat ratio, it requires high fat ratio-milk.There are a few key elements you never want to miss, which include:

• Use chilled cream. Pop it into the fridge as soon as you buy it. In hot weather, before whipping cream, keep it in fridge for at least 5 to 6 hours.
• Pop the bowl, beater blades or hand whisk into the freezer at least 30 min before whipping. If you find some water after taking the bowl out of the freezer, whip it clean with a clean clothe. Not a single droplet of water should be there when whipping cream.
• Grease free bowl and whisk. NO traces of butter or oil should be present.
• Not a single droplet of water, not even the condensed water droplet that falls from the sides of the cream pack once you’re squeezing the cream out of it.
• You can easily whip cream in winters with a hand whisk. But in summers you’ll be needing a hand-held beater or if you’re lucky a heavy duty mixer works like a charm.
• Now pour cream into the cold mixing bowl and start whipping with either chilled beater blades or hand whisk, first to soft peaks. Soft peaks form when the whisk when lifted off cream, leaves ribbon like trail behind, not runny like before.
• Now is the time to add in icing sugar/powdered sugar for sweetness, vanilla essence for flavoring. You may add cocoa powder for chocolate frosting.
• And then to hard peaks. Hard peaks form when you lift your beater from the cream, it leaves well shaped peaks for small mountains or holds its shape in place. that’s when you know your cream is whipped and ready to be served or decorate.
• For hot and humid weather like ours, gelatin and cornstarch/ pudding mix technique works best with heavy whipped cream. Don’t go for light whipped cream, go for creams with more than 36% milk-fat.

Stages in whipping cream:

1. Soft peaks: When you beat the cream till it increases slightly in volume and whisk or beater blade leaves ribbon like trail when pulled up. Roughly 3-5 min of beating with electric mixer.
2. Hard peaks: When cream beats for around 7 to 10 min, whips up double or more in volume, and leaves hard peaks behind when beater blade or whisk is pulled up.

Stabilized Whipped Cream

Stabilized whipped cream is a way of preserving whipped cream to its stiff form depending upon the weather and humidity in given area. It can be done in a bunch of ways. Pudding Mix technique, gelatin, cream cheese, corn starch, milk powder, icing sugar. Today I’ll be sharing gelatin technique with you on light whipping cream, with min 30% butterfat. As you can see from the shots on top, the cream is not holding its shape that well in hot and humid weather, however store bought non-dairy whipped topping worked like a charm. Next we’ll be experimenting gelatin technique with heavy whipped cream and share results with you.

In sha Allah in future posts I’ll be sharing all the different types of creams and how you can create them at home.

If you enjoyed reading my “Stabilized whipped cream” recipe, then please do share it with your friends and family at home and at other networks like facebook and twitter. And if you would like to receive free – tried and tested recipes of my blog like this “Stabilized whipped cream”, please do subscribe to my blog and get free updates.

If you know someone who is into baking, would like to learn “How to bake a perfect cake”, suggest my free e-course and start baking. Click The Chef In Me and the enter your name and e-mail on the widget on your right, to join the course.

Do checkout my cakes venture website Cakes.pk and join the facebook page as well.