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Stabilizing whipping cream


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next time you should purposely make butter just so you know how far you can go.  You'll notice it long before trust me.  Theres a point where you've whipped it too much but its not to the point of no return, just starting to gather the fat.  In that instance you can always deflate it with a spatula a little.

I agree. It is very interesting taking the whipped cream too far. It takes it a while, but after a lot of overwhipping (say double or triple what it takes to whip it properly), the cream suddenly releases all of its water at once. As soon as it reaches that point you can actually hear a sudden “whoosh” as the water hits the sides of your mixer. The churning is especially dramatic, and the sound is particularly audible, in the food processor, which I don’t usually use for making whipped cream, but which is great for making butter.

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how do you think they get the percentage.  divide the grams of fat by the volume.

Actually, before anyone goes out and tries this, don't, because it won't work. Grams are a measure of weight/mass. Dividing it by the volume will give you a basically meaningless number.

Now, the elementary school teacher in me has to explain (I always get guff for overexplaining things, so I apologize in advance). Say you had a box of apples and oranges, and you wanted to know what percentage of fruits in the box were oranges. If you weighed the oranges and divided by the total number of fruits in the box, this obviously wouldn't work. The resulting number would be meaningless, because well, you're comparing apples to oranges (:wink: pun intended). Of course you already know you'd have to count the oranges and divide by the total fruits. (Now that's comparing apples to apples. :laugh:)

So then, if you weighed a serving size of the cream (as indicated on the carton), in grams, then divided the fat grams by the cream serving grams, now that would give you the butterfat percentage by weight. BUT, is the butterfat percentage listed on most cartons measured by weight, or is it by volume? That I don't know. (And I'm resisting the urge to explain why that matters, since I'm sure you're all already rolling your eyes at me. :rolleyes:)

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how do you think they get the percentage.  divide the grams of fat by the volume.

Actually, before anyone goes out and tries this, don't, because it won't work. Grams are a measure of weight/mass. Dividing it by the volume will give you a basically meaningless number.

well you should also remember that the density of cream is close enough to that of water which is 1 g/cm3 hence the volume in millilitres is basically the same as the weight in grams. So go ahead and divide by the volume since it won't make that much of a difference.

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thank you, i was going to say that too but I didnt have a way to say it without sounding mean. And percentage can be of anything as long as its 2 same factors. Also weight and mass arent the same thing. They are completely different and you need the density calculation to figure one or the other out. Plus mass is almost if never a factor in cooking/baking.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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hahaha, noooo. Everything that consists of matter has a different density rating. so with that said one thing and can weigh the same as another but consumer a lot less volume. Example, lead and water. 1lb of Pb is a lot smaller in proportion than 1 lb of H2O. Mass equals the amount of matter a subtance contains. You can break that down to its molecular structure. Weight is measured by its gravitational pull. So you can be weightless in space but still contain the same mass. Understand?

So thats why you need a formula consisting of density to determine mass if you have the weight scaled + its density measure.

Edited by chiantiglace (log)

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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I think your slightly mistaken about your concepts. Weight is the gravitational force exerted by a mass and the formula for weight is m*g. Since g is (almost) constant, weight is directly proportional to mass and, thus, percentage by weight is almost exactly the same as percentage by mass.

eg: if you had something that was 5g/100g, it would be 5% by mass. The weight of the object would be 49.05N/9810N which is also exactly 5% by weight.

PS: I am a guy.

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Wow, we really have gotten off topic, haven't we? I realize I should have followed my better judgement and not brought this issue up at all, as I see I've already made an annoyance of myself.

Arghavan, you bring up a good point about the similar densities of water and cream, and I did forget to account for that. An interesting note, though--I did a few quick calculations based on cream labels, comparing my percentage results with the labels' stated percentages. I found that the higher the percentage of fat, the less accurate my calculations were. For example, the calculated percentage for the 30% whipping cream label pictured in the whipping cream demo was right on, but the calculated percentage for the 38% heavy whipping cream was only 35%. Of course this makes sense, since, fat being typically less dense than water, the more fat there is in a liquid, the less dense it will be, resulting in volume measurements that overestmate the total grams, and thus produce a lower percentage. The 3% difference is significant in the numbers we're dealing with, but from everyone's experience here, it's still irrelevant in terms of making proper whipped cream that lasts (which chiantiglace has demonstrated so beautifully).

Chiantiglace, I'm pretty sure you've still got some things mixed up with regard to weight/mass/volume/density, and I typed up a really long explanation why, but I realized that it has absolutely no bearing on the topic of stabilizing whipped cream, and I wasn't helping anyone by bickering over scientific minutiae.

I'm sorry if I upset or offended anyone, and I'm embarrassed that I even brought it up, here in one of my first posts to this forum. :sad:

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It's all part of learning process. If someone is wrong its ok. But most of the time here were just a we bit skewed and were all on the right track. I like when people are direct. I dont mind being told I'm wrong. I use to be very good in physics, math and chemistry but unfortunately I dont dont use the terminalogy everyday like some people and when im on here trying to explain something I type so fast I may state things that are there but they arent very clear and need a little adjusting. If I had thought about it a second I would have rephrased and used weight instead of volume. Its jus tthe thinking process that puts wrong words in the right places.

I was thinking about the dispute between mass and weight and I remembered a strong argument I and some fellow students gave in highschool to my physics teacher talk about the difference between mass and weight. And at that time I was on the other side of the table stating that weight cant be too far from mass. I wish I could remember exactly how she explained it to us so that I could restate it but my mind just doesnt care about that anymore. Unless it has a definate effect on how my souffle rises I dont really care.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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K8memphis, sorry it took so long to reply...

When we make the whipped cream with a vanilla bean, we scrape out the stuff inside and add it with the sugar at the beginning of the whipping process. We then save the pod and use it for something else down the road. (brulee base, bavarois, etc...) We do end up with speckled whipped cream. I think it looks nice.

Stephen W.

Pastry Chef/Owner

The Sweet Life Bakery

Vineland, NJ

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I dont really seem to have a problem with falling whipped cream. Perhaps it is because we always eat it all up before it can sit for too long! This may also have something to do with it: I always stiffly beat ann egg white and fold it into the whipped cream. This probably gives it added stability. And, depending on the recipe I'm whipped cream in, I may flavor it- vanilla of course, or maybe some peach brandy. Whipped cream flavored with the latter is divine with fresh summer fruits! (We have fresh white peaches in the yard right now :raz: )

Cheers,

Robert Kim

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well, yea egg white helps but then it isnt whipped cream any more and you have now crossed into a mousse base. Which is still tasty, but its not whats the word.... chantilly cream.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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I dont really seem to have a problem with falling whipped cream.  Perhaps it is because we always eat it all up before it can sit for too long!  This may also have something to do with it:  I always stiffly beat ann egg white and fold it into the whipped cream.  This probably gives it added stability.  And, depending on the recipe I'm whipped cream in, I may flavor it- vanilla of course, or maybe some peach brandy.  Whipped cream flavored with the latter is divine with fresh summer fruits!  (We have fresh white peaches in the yard right now :raz: )

Cheers,

Robert Kim

Interesting. The egg white remains completely uncooked, I presume?

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I found that another way to up the butterfat if you don't have a supply of double cream is folding in some whipped cream cheese/mascarpone ala Lidia Bastianich, and Joy of Cooking. I put some in a stainless steel container Saturday, and it was fine Sunday. I don't like it when my pastry chef tells me that my whipped cream is too stiff, in my opinion it's not too stiff so long as the butterfat isn't coagulated.

On that other issue, I thought that speed reading these posts the only fault I found with chianteglace's reasoning was the 1 sheet = 1oz powdered gelatin, but maybe that wasn't even in this thread and it was probably just mistyped to mean 10 sheets = 1oz. I won't stake my claim as a scientist/cook on it though. Note to self, i'll have to check that demo sometime when I have a fast connection.

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yes you are on the wrong thread. The thread talking about gelatin is only about gelatin and not about whipped cream. yes it was a miss type I am so sorry, but thats probably why I typed like 10 other facts similar, one being 1 sheet equals 1/10 of an oz and another stating that 1 sheet equals 1 tsp powdered.

Also if I were working under someone who told me not to put CHEESE in whipped cream no matter what the reason I wouldnt do it. Because CHEESE is not cream, and once again as I seem to repeating myself constantly your heading into another product when you add things to gain a specific result.

Dean Anthony Anderson

"If all you have to eat is an egg, you had better know how to cook it properly" ~ Herve This

Pastry Chef: One If By Land Two If By Sea

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Where are you from chianteglace? I'm sorry to have offended you, I was trying to give you a compliment. I would like to posit that whipped cream isn't whipped cream if ANYthing is added, so perhaps there is no such thing as stabilized whipped cream, it is just whipped cream.

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Theres a huge difference between adding gelatin to stablize whipped cream and cheeses or other flavorful ingredients.

Yes, you can "stablize" whipped cream. To do so, it would involve using stablizing types of ingredients, like gelatin or pectin..........or cornstarch, etc. ingredients that are thickeners and not used or eaten on their own.

The list of ingredients one can use in conjuction with whipped cream to make it hold thickly is very long. Some examples as sited are: chocolate, pudding, cream cheese, marscarpone. The use of those types of ingredients can not be labeled as "stablizers", because those ingredients aren't stablizers even though they will thicken or incoporate thinner ingredients.

The point is: Correctly whipped cream doesn't need any stablizing ingredients.

If you would like information and help on whipping cream please look at this thread.

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That may be true, but I was just giving everyone a way that works for me. As a point of fact, call it what you will but my whipped cream/cream cheese (still in stainless) is still holding fine, and does not taste like the fridge (or cream cheese).

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  • 5 months later...

You can use gelatin...but it's way easier to just toss in a tablespoon or so of instant vanilla pudding powder. I know people roll thier eyes at that, but really, it works like a charm. Don't use sugar free, it makes little lumps, but the regular stuff works great.

Or Dr. Oetker has a whip cream stabilizer, usually found around the other Oetker flavorings and whatnot in the baking aisle. Pudding is cheaper.

Don't try to win over the haters. You're not the jackass whisperer."

Scott Stratten

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To use gelatin, use the following proportions:

Heavy Cream 1qt

Gelatin 1/3 oz

Cold Water 2 oz

Soften the gelatin in the cold water, then warm it until the gelatin dissolves. Cool it, but do not let it set. Beat it into the cream just as the cream begins to thicken.

From, "Professional Baking", Gisslen.

-------------------------

Water Boils Roughly

Cold Eggs Coagulating

Egg Salad On Rye

-------------------------

Gregg Robinson

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i've never liked the taste of stabilizer/gelatin in my whipped cream. what i do is to simply whip the cream well and leave it in the fridge - it actually keeps for a few hours. if it does deflate, a few turns of the whisk brings it right back.

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You could try adding some nonfat dry powdered milk to the whipped cream. I haven't tried it myself, but I have dim recollections reading about it on the Epicurious forum website, and in a book somewhere. Try 2 teaspoons of nonfat dry milk for each cup of cream before you whip. The dry milk might work if you don't like the taste of gelatin or other stabilizers in your whipped cream.

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