Whipping cream

Whipped cream is cream that is whipped by a whisk or mixer until it is light and fluffy. Whipped cream is often sweetened and sometimes flavored with vanilla. Whipped cream is also called Chantilly cream or Crème chantilly (pronounced ).Mousses are made with sweet cream, not very thick; one whips it, which makes it foam, and it is this foam that one uses: one may give it whatever flavor one wants, with aromatics, flours, fruits, wines, or liqueurs. Whipped cream is cream that is whipped by a whisk or mixer until it is light and fluffy. Whipped cream is often sweetened and sometimes flavored with vanilla. Whipped cream is also called Chantilly cream or Crème chantilly (pronounced ). Whipped cream is a culinary colloid produced when heavy cream is subjected to mechanical aeration. Air is incorporated into cream containing at least 35% fat by one of two processes: mechanical agitation with a high-speed blade or whip, or injecting a gas under high pressure, which expands rapidly when released from pressurized containment. During whipping, partially coalesced fat molecules create a stabilized network which traps air bubbles. The resulting colloid is roughly double the volume of the original cream. If, however, the whipping is continued, the fat droplets will stick together destroying the colloid and forming butter. Lower-fat cream (or milk) does not whip well, while higher-fat cream produces a more stable foam. Cream is usually whipped with a whisk, an electric or hand mixer, or a food processor. Results are best when the equipment and ingredients are cold. Whipped cream is often flavored with sugar, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, orange, and so on. Many 19th-century recipes recommend adding gum tragacanth to stabilize whipped cream; a few include whipped egg whites. Various other substances, including gelatin and diphosphate (E450), are used in commercial stabilizers. Whipped cream may also be made in a whipping siphon, typically using nitrous oxide as the gas, as carbon dioxide tends to give a sour taste (cf. soda syphon). The siphon may have replaceable cartridges or be sold as a pre-pressurized retail package. The gas dissolves in the butterfat under pressure, and when the pressure is released, produces bubbles and thus whipped cream. Whipped cream, often sweetened and aromatised, was popular in the 16th century, with recipes in the writings of Cristoforo di Messisbugo (Ferrara, 1549), Bartolomeo Scappi (Rome, 1570), and Lancelot de Casteau (Liège, 1604). It was called milk or cream snow (neve di latte, neige de lait, neige de crème). A 1545 English recipe, 'A Dyschefull of Snow', includes whipped egg whites as well, and is flavored with rosewater and sugar. (cf. snow cream) In these recipes, and until the end of the 19th century, naturally separated cream is whipped, typically with willow or rush branches, and the resulting foam on the surface would from time to time be skimmed off and drained, a process taking an hour or more. By the end of the 19th century, centrifuge-separated, high-fat cream made it much faster and easier to make whipped cream. The French name crème fouettée 'whipped cream' is attested in 1629, and the English name 'whipped cream' in 1673. The name 'snow cream' continued to be used in the 17th century. Various desserts consisting of whipped cream in pyramidal shapes with coffee, liqueurs, chocolate, fruits, and so on either in the mixture or poured on top were called crème en mousse 'cream in a foam', crème fouettée, crème mousseuse 'foamy cream', mousse 'foam', and fromage à la Chantilly 'Chantilly-style molded cream', as early as 1768. Modern mousses, including mousse au chocolat, are a continuation of this tradition.