Whipped Cream

By nnlester

Ingredients

• Heavy cream
• sugar

Preparation

Step 1

Chilling the bowl and the beaters as well as the cream provides extra insurance that the cream will stay cold enough to remain firm.

Avoid Overwhipping

If you whip the cream too long, it can curdle and separate—or turn to butter. If beating via an electric mixer, we recommend beating the cream to soft peaks, turning off the machine, and finishing the final few strokes by hand.

Adding Sugar

For sweetening whipped cream, the test kitchen has found granulated sugar to be the best sweetener for whipped cream. It takes twice as much confectioners' sugar to equal the sweetness of granulated sugar, and using so much inevitably lends a faint chalkiness to the end product.

As for timing, we recommend adding the sugar at the beginning so that the granules have a chance to dissolve. When the sugar is added late in the process, the whipped cream has a slightly grainy texture.

Storing Whipped Cream

While some recipes suggest that acidic ingredients may help to stabilize whipped cream so that it can be stored for longer, we have found that they don’t really do much. We’ve found that heavy cream will maintain its whip for a few hours in the refrigerator. For longer storage, we recommend placing the whipped ream in a wire-mesh strainer set over a mixing bowl, which allows any seepage to drip away from the whipped cream.