Welcome to today’s edition of Kitchen Projects. Thank you so much for being here.
I’m utterly thrilled to introduce you to the latest edition ofBrian Levy’s Baking Remix. Brian is investigating the best way to stabilise whipped cream just in time for summer and all its incoming heatwaves.
For KP+, I’ve turned my hand to a cake with no butter or oil and derives its fat (and some of its lift!) only from whipped cream. Please welcome in this super simple, ridiculous melt-in-the-mouth cake: The Whipped Vanilla Cream Loaf.Click here for the recipe.
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A dollop of cold, voluminous whipped cream is rarely unwelcome atop a cake, slice of pie, or a hot chocolate -- whenever, wherever. But in the summer, it’s glaringly indispensable during the season of annual visits by nude berries and stone fruits, and the desserts they make their way into: Eton Mess, Strawberry shortcake or pavlova, and the Swedish jordgubbsgräddtårta (strawberry layer cake) would be downright inconceivable without whipped cream.
Taking the prudent step of stabilising one’s whipped cream is especially reassuring in the summer; a properly stabilised whipped cream can be made well ahead of serving and can withstand a couple of hours of estival heat and humidity, ideally retaining that paradoxical marriage of feather-lightness and unctuousness.
Adding ingredients to cream to encourage and extend its whipped state isn’t a new idea; in the 1868 edition ofLa Cuisine Classique : études pratiques, raisonnées et démonstratives de l’École française appliquée, for example, the authors (chefs to the king and queen of Prussia) suggest adding a pinch of tragacanth gumto give crème Chantilly a boost. (Tragacanth gum is the dried secretion sourced from the branches and roots of shrubs in the genus Astragalus native to parts of the Levant, Iran, Turkey, and Greece. Highly mucilaginous, itt has many culinary and pharmaceutical uses but seems to have lost its popularity to cheaper guar gum, which Larousse gastronomique suggests serves the same function.)
To be honest, I hadn’t thought that much about which of the myriad potential stabilisers performed best until Nicola asked me to investigate. Many years ago, I learned (I can’t recall where) to add either nonfat milk powder or crème fraiche (or mascarpone) to cream for added stability when whipping, and that was that. I’d stuck to those tricks and never really looked back. But when Nicola asked me to do a comparison and identify the best stabilizer(s), the wheels really started to spin, and the paper started to fill with possibilities: adding hydrocolloids such as agar, starches, powdered gums, and gelatin; concentrating the milkfat content of cream by reducing it or adding butter; incorporating acidic or cultured elements such as cream of tartar or yogurt.
But before we get to that . . .
What Is Stabilised Whipped Cream?
When you agitate cream enough, a foam forms as air bubbles enter the mix and the cream’s globules of milkfat rearrange themselves to trap and suspend those air bubbles (reinforced, to a degree, by milk proteins), yielding a sponge-like network. The new arrangement of fat globules and protein walls off the air bubbles from the cream’s significant water content.
The whipped vanilla cream loaf on KP+ today
Because fat is mostly responsible for holding the incorporated air in place, cream must have a minimum fat content of around 30% in order to even be considered fit for whipping. In the US, “whipping cream” contains 30% milk fat and “heavy whipping cream” contains 36% milkfat, while British “double cream” has a whopping 48% (“single cream” only has 18%; not sufficient for whipping).
Whipped cream, in its pure form, is an inherently unstable foam; it wants to ditch the air bubbles and return to its liquid state from the moment it’s whipped, and, left to its own devices (especially under the right conditions of heat and humidity), it can do so within hours. To stabilise whipped cream, we add an ingredient or apply a technique that keeps the foam in place for a longer period by helping to resist the effects of time and temperature.
Sidebar. Here's a reminder of “The Importance of Cold” when it comes to whipping cream, from Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking:
Because even mild warmth softens the butterfat [or, I extrapolate, other fat] skeleton of a cream foam, and liquid fat will collapse the air bubbles, it’s essential to keep cream cold while it’s whipped. It should start out at the low end of 40-50℉/5-10℃…Ideally, the cream is “aged” in the refrigerator for 12 hours or more before whipping.
Given the importance of the formation of whipped cream of fat, protein, and restrained water, it’s no wonder that the ingredients and techniques typically used to stabilise whipped cream are intended to reinforce those various components. Mascarpone and crème fraiche add fat and acidity (the latter in turn strengthens cream’s protein connections); milk powder adds protein to and absorbs water from cream; cornstarch, xanthan gum, and gelatin are all hydrocolloids that form gels, trapping water in place.
In addition to the most commonly recommended whipped cream stabilizers mentioned above, I wondered how other gelling agents would work: agar, pectin, a wheat-flour roux. What about adding acidity in the form of cream of tartar? Or increasing cream’s fat concentration by adding butter or reducing it through simmering?
On KP+ today, meet this whipped vanilla cream loaf, a pound-like cake with melt-in-your-mouth texture and the flavour of vanilla ice cream. It uses whipped cream as the only source of fat (! well other than yolks but sssshhhh) - no butter or oil. It has such a gorgeous texture that lasts for days and couldn’t be easier to make:
I should note that all of my thinking about this subject has American heavy whipping cream (36% fat) at its center. Double cream (48% fat), which Nicola told me essentially produces a version of stabilised whipped cream relative to that made with heavy whipping cream, isn’t available here.
I compiled an initial list of contenders for stabilising ingredients/techniques. In the polysaccharide hydrocolloid (gel-forming carbohydrate) category, there was agar, carrageenan, pectin, xanthan gum, locust bean gum, starches (tapioca, corn), and flour (to be used in a roux: rice, wheat). Then there was the ubiquitous collagen (protein)-based hydrocolloid, gelatine. Protein-rich milk powder was there, as was acidic cream of tartar. In the category of thick, cultured products were cream cheese, mascarpone, crème fraiche, and Greek yoghurt. As ways to increase the fat content of the cream to be whipped, I considered adding butter or cacao butter and reducing the cream’s water content via simmering. Finally, what about incorporating a small proportion of melted white chocolate into the cream (nowhere near enough for it to resemble a ganache, but just enough for cacao butter's saturated fats and milk powder's proteins to offer some support).
The list needed to be whittled down, and I started by cutting the additives I was certain would add perceptible flavor: cacao butter and white chocolate. After that, I needed Nicola’s resolute editing eye to help me say goodbye to others. We landed on a list of ingredients that are relatively easy to find (adieu, carrageenan and locust bean gum) and techniques that require no special tools: gelling agents would include agar agar powder, pectin, xanthan gum, cornstarch, gelatine, and a wheat-flour roux; cream of tartar and mascarpone would represent the acidifying/cultured category; nonfat milk powder would test the power of milk proteins; and the techniques of melting butter with cream and reducing cream’s water content would highlight the role of milkfat.
DAY 1
I went about making the eleven test samples, plus the control (plain whipped cream). I put each in its own piping bag, all of which I would save for one week. On the first day, I piped each of the samples into a neat little swirl in a pan that I would keep covered and refrigerated for the next seven days. Each day, I’d briefly take the tray out to observe any changes to the consistently refrigerated creams. I’d also pipe new samples each day from the piping bags filled on the first day and let those samples sit out in the heat of the sun or, on days when the sun was elusive, I’d expose them to a gruelling mix of room temperature and a warm oven.
Day 7
Below are my observations for each of these samples:
Cornstarch and Wheat-Flour Roux both disappointed from the very start; I had a hard time whipping them and never got either beyond the limp-peaks phase. That said, the roux did slightly better than the cornstarch. But I ruled both of these out from the outset. After all, if they required anything more complicated than heating, chilling, and whipping to work, then what was the point?
Cornstarch L-R: Piped day 2, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Wheat Roux L-R: Piped day 2, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Pectin, not commonly associated with dairy concoctions, was perhaps my least predictable choice. I knew from previous experiments that a type of citrus-peel-derived pectin – called “low methoxyl” (it sounds highly technical, but it’s what they sell at all of the supermarkets near me) – gels in the presence of calcium and doesn’t require the acidic and sugary conditions needed for high methoxyl pectin to form a gel. Sure enough, the cream’s calcium did the trick, and pectin yielded the most stable whipped cream of all the samples. The downsides: the cream has a slightly yellowish tint (not terrible, but it’s not the perfect white of au naturel cream), the texture is rather heavy and mildly slimy, and there is a risk of tiny clumps of gel.
Pectin: Piped day 2, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Xanthan Gumwas not a stellar performer. Like cornstarch and roux, it made the cream resistant to holding peaks. (Perhaps the gum gets in the way of the fat globules’ movement, hindering their rearrangement, which is imperative for trapping air.) Once achieving its “limp-peak” stage, however, it did hold onto it pretty well. But the sticky consistency combined with the inability to form stiff peaks made this a “no” for me.
Xanthan: Piped day 2, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Gelatine is one of the most commonly used whipped cream stabilizers. It is indeed a functional stabilizer, but I found that it encourages large air bubbles and a brittle solidity that give it more of a marshmallow-y than creamy texture. And it turns out . . .
Gelatine L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
. . .Agar Agar Powder, often thought of as a plant-based gelatine alternative, offered results that I much preferred to gelatine’s; the agar-stabilized whipped cream held its shape persistently and also had a light and very pleasing mouthfeel very similar to that of the control sample.
Agar Agar L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Could Cream of Tartar, the acidic powder commonly used to stabilize egg white foams by unfolding their proteins and strengthening their connections, impart a similar strength to a dairy foam by acting on milk proteins? It did indeed produce a more enduring foam than the control – without having much effect on the flavor (I’d expected some sourness but didn’t detect any) – but wasn’t one of the more impressive stabilizers.
Cream of Tartar L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Mascarpone truly works magic on whipped cream. Maybe it’s because it attacks from all angles, adding fat and protein, which reinforces those very elements in the cream that trap air, while also increasing the overall acidity to strengthen the cream’s own proteins (see “Cream of Tartar” above). The result is a rich but light whipped cream (“perfect,” I wrote in my tasting notes) that holds its shape with the best of them. The mascarpone has barely any impact on the flavor of the cream (and I say “barely” only to preclude any potential commentary on the insensitivity of my palate; the truth is I noticed no difference in flavor). The more noticeable impact is on the mouthfeel, which, while still surprisingly light, is a bit richer.
Mascarpone L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Nonfat Milk Powder is, as I mentioned above, what I’ve been using for many years to stabilise whipped cream. It turns out that, in doing so, I’ve been suboptimizing. Milk powder, high in protein and milk sugars, does an okay job of extending whipped cream’s aerated life, and it adds a lovely, concentrated dairy flavour – but it’s just not among the best performers in my tests.
Milk Powder L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
I added enough Butter to heavy whipping cream for the mixture’s milkfat proportion to equal that of British double cream. After heating them together and chilling, I hoped for the best and whipped. The resulting whipped cream was expectedly rich, thick, and sturdy, but its buttery-yellow color and its greasy way of melting in the sun took it out of the running for my purposes.
Butter L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
Reduced Cream, on the other hand, was a pleasure to work with. I cooked off enough of the heavy whipping cream’s water content (just under a third of its original weight) for the final product to resemble double cream. After chilling, the reduced cream was thick and syrupy, like sweetened condensed milk. It whipped to a gorgeously thick, white, fluffy but extra-rich cream. Now I understood what I’d been missing when Nicola told me Britons, with easy access to double cream, were spoiled.
Reduced Cream L-R: Piped day 1, piped day 7, After heat exposure
The Control was heavy whipping cream whipped the old-fashioned way: nothing added (but for sugar in one round of testing). Easy to whip, with deliciously cloud-light results, it proved itself, unsurprisingly, to be among the least stable (although it did somehow beat out my cornstarch-stabilised sample!).
CONCLUSION
OVERALL BEST: Mascarpone-Stabilised Whipped Cream: I didn’t want this to be the winner because it was so…easy and already well-known. But I can’t deny that mascarpone adds surprising durability and incredible texture to whipped cream. And its ease (you just add some mascarpone to the cream when whipping; no extra steps required) gives it a huge advantage.
BEST & LIGHTEST: Agar-Stabilised Whipped Cream: Agar agar powder offers a similar stability to mascarpone and yields a slightly lighter cream, if that’s what you’re after.
BEST & THICKEST: Reduced Whipped Cream (aka Double Cream): Reducing the cream to create a “faux double cream” produces an undeniably delicious and stable whipped cream -- but know that it is much richer than what you’re used to, if heavy whipping cream is what you’ve grown up with.
But wait… how does this all compare to Actual British Double Cream?
If you’ve read this newsletter for a while, you know I wax lyrical about the brilliance of British Dairy. It’s so rich and fat that I even give directions to add milk to it to temper that intense fat content! BUT given Brian’s conclusion (and I was thrilled that he got to see the thicc side of dairy this week) I knew I had to see how Brian’s stabilised creams stood up against British double cream. And since we are in a heatwave right now (my kitchen was 29c / 84f) it couldn’t be a more perfect time to test it. Left at room temp for FOUR HOURS… every single sample had started to run except one… It was (drum roll please….) the reduced whipping cream!
The mascarpone and agar agar both failed/began to weep at similar times and first, but it took four HOT hours for the double cream to start to fail. So, hurrah for reduced whipping cream. VERY impressive!
And now, the recipes. Each of the following recipes makes about 2 cups (500 ml) of whipped cream.
In a large, cold metal mixing bowl, gently whisk about half of the cream with the mascarpone to mix it to a thick cream. Add the remaining cream and whisk (manually or using a stand mixer or hand mixer at medium speed) until your desired stiffness and volume are reached. (If adding sugar, sprinkle it in gradually once the cream is slightly aerated.) Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or sealed piping bag for up to 3 days until ready to use.
Measure 120 grams of the cream into a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, sprinkle the agar over it, and whisk it into the cream. Bring just to a boil over medium heat, whisking frequently. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer, continuing to whisk constantly, until all of the agar has dissolved. (Before dissolving, you’ll see traces of the agar granules at the bottom of the pan when you angle it.)
Remove it from the heat and whisk in the remaining 150 grams of cold cream. Transfer to a cold dish, place a cutout of parchment directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming, cover, and refrigerate until very cold (it will be slightly thicker than heavy cream).
Whisk (manually or using a stand mixer or hand mixer at medium speed) until your desired stiffness and volume are reached. (If adding sugar, sprinkle it in gradually once the cream is slightly aerated.) Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or sealed piping bag for up to 3 days until ready to use.
This recipe makes the equivalent to 230g double cream, so if you have access to double cream, you can skip this step and go straight to whisking.
Ingredients
325 grams heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar (optional)
Method
In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, whisking frequently, until just under one-third of the cream has evaporated; you should have about 230 grams of reduced cream (This takes me around 8-10 minutes, but burner intensities vary). Transfer to a cold dish, place a cutout of parchment directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming, cover and refrigerate until very cold.
Whisk (manually or using a stand mixer or hand mixer at medium speed) until your desired stiffness and volume are reached. (If adding sugar, sprinkle it in gradually once the cream is slightly aerated.) If it seems too thick, add some cold (not reduced) heavy cream, about a tablespoon at a time, and whisk gently until your desired consistency is reached. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or sealed piping bag for up to 3 days until ready to use.
How I yearn for double cream in America. When I filmed the Great American Baking Show outside of London (yes, it was filmed across the pond), I had a recipe that included a stabilized whipped cream frosting. Developing the recipe back home in Chicago, I labored to get the perfect texture to pipe and decorate a cake. Then we got to the UK for filming, and I tested it with double cream. Voila, it held perfect peaks for hours with absolutely no stabilizer.
At last, a solution to my weak German cream woes! Now if only I could boil the flour to raise the protein percentage...
How I yearn for double cream in America. When I filmed the Great American Baking Show outside of London (yes, it was filmed across the pond), I had a recipe that included a stabilized whipped cream frosting. Developing the recipe back home in Chicago, I labored to get the perfect texture to pipe and decorate a cake. Then we got to the UK for filming, and I tested it with double cream. Voila, it held perfect peaks for hours with absolutely no stabilizer.
These days, I rely on cream cheese or mascarpone.