To Whip Cream

By the RecipeCafe Archives

Ingredients

• 1 Heavy cream or thin cream, as needed (see notes for dilution ratios)
• 1 Crushed ice and water, for chilling bowl
• 1 Optional: sugar and flavoring, to taste, if serving as Cream Sauce with puddings

Instructions

1. 1. Chill the cream thoroughly before beginning. Place the cream in a deep bowl that is not too large — the cream should fill it at least one-third. Set the bowl in a pan of crushed ice with water added; the water conducts cold more efficiently than dry ice alone and will chill the cream faster.
2. 2. Determine which tool and dilution to use based on cream type. For heavy cream used undiluted or diluted with no more than one-third its volume in whole milk, use a hand rotary beater (period term: Dover egg-beater). For thin cream used undiluted, or for heavy cream diluted with one-half to two-thirds its volume in whole milk, use a whip churn (period term: whip churn — a lidded canister with a perforated dasher operated by hand). Note: undiluted heavy cream will turn to butter if beaten even slightly past the stiff-whip stage; watch closely.
3. 3. To use the whip churn: place the churn in the bowl of chilled cream. Hold the lid down firmly with the left hand. With the right hand, work the dasher with quick downward strokes and slow upward strokes. Keep the dasher low in the cylinder to avoid spattering.
4. 4. As whipped foam forms, assess each batch. The first foam to appear contains large air bubbles and is unstable; stir it back into the cream. The second and subsequent rounds of foam are stable — remove them by spoonfuls to a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl. Some liquid cream will drain through the strainer; collect it and return it to the main bowl to be re-whipped. Continue whipping until no more stable foam forms, approximately 10-20 minutes total depending on volume and temperature, until the cream has roughly tripled in bulk and the foam holds its shape when spooned.
5. 5. If sweetened and flavored cream is desired for Cream Sauce (to serve with puddings), sweeten and flavor the stable whipped foam to taste once it has been removed to the strainer.
6. 6. Any cream remaining in the bowl that sits below the perforations of the whip churn and cannot be whipped may be scalded (technique: scalding — heating liquid to just below a simmer, approximately 180°F / 82°C, until a thin skin forms and small bubbles appear at the edges) and used to dissolve powdered gelatin for desserts requiring it.