Whipped cream

Whipped cream is cream beaten until air bubbles turn it into a soft foam. It is used as a topping or filling for sweet dishes and as a component of some frozen desserts. Whipping depends on milk fat forming a network around the bubbles. Historical sweetened and flavoured forms were known as milk snow; the name Chantilly cream developed later.

Structure

Cream is an emulsion containing globules of milk fat. During whipping, agitation introduces air and brings the globules together in chains and clusters around the bubbles. This process is called partial coalescence: the globules join together while retaining their individual identities. Connections between neighbouring bubbles build a network that gives the cream its firmer consistency. Water, lactose and proteins occupy the spaces around the bubbles.

The fat must be partly crystalline for this network to develop, making the process sensitive to temperature. Partial coalescence creates a three-dimensional structure, whereas complete coalescence produces larger fat globules without the same supporting framework. Excessive whipping eventually churns the fat into butter particles.

Preparation and uses

Whipping requires sufficiently fatty cream. In British usage, whipping cream contains about 36 per cent fat and double cream about 48 per cent; single cream lacks enough fat to whip. Cream, bowl and utensils are chilled before beating. A whisk or electric mixer can be used, and the cream approximately doubles in volume. Initially, peaks formed in the thickened cream bend over at their tips; continued beating produces peaks that hold their shape.

Whipped cream accompanies pies, tarts and puddings, fills cakes, and forms a base for some ice creams, parfaits and mousses. It may be sweetened with icing sugar or flavoured with vanilla, cinnamon or chocolate. Flavour can also be introduced by infusing the cream with citrus peel before whipping.

History

Food historian Pierre Leclercq traces sweetened, flavoured whipped cream to the first half of the sixteenth century, when preparations called milk snow were known in England, France, Italy and Germany. Early recipes combined cream with beaten egg whites, sugar and rosewater. The egg whites helped the foam retain its structure, and the rising foam was collected and drained.

Leclercq rejects the later story that François Vatel invented Chantilly cream: the preparation existed well before Vatel's lifetime. A recipe published in 1750 used the name fromage à la chantilly for whipped cream that was subsequently frozen. Leclercq identifies an 1893 account by the pastry cook Pierre Lacam as the first to link Vatel with the invention of Chantilly cream, and describes the attribution as a culinary myth.

Aerosol packaging

Packaged whipped cream became part of the expansion of convenience foods in the mid-twentieth century. The American entrepreneur Aaron Lapin was an early customer for a seamless aerosol container introduced in 1946. He marketed cream in these containers as Reddi-wip, initially through milkmen in St Louis, before distribution spread across the United States and Canada. In 1955, Lapin received a patent for a nozzle used on aerosol whipped-cream containers. His business was already established by then; the patent concerned the dispensing equipment rather than the invention of whipped cream.

Attribution

Adapted from English Wikipedia's Whipped cream, revision 1375154278 (contributors and history), under CC BY-SA 4.0. The prose has been rewritten and condensed, and the references independently checked.