Making My Own Whipped Cream Instead of Buying the Stuff in the Tub
This is the third change in my month-long pledge to give up plastics for Crunchy's Extreme Eco-Throwdown. Strawberry season is upon us here in sunny Virginia and the kids, hubby and I picked twenty pounds of the beautiful red jewels yesterday at a farm around the corner. My god, they are sweet and juicy, bursting with flavor and they smell of early summer.
And like all good fruits, they need whipped cream.
I know the spray whipped cream is lots of fun to use, but with two little kids in the house, it's a little too fun, if you know what I mean. So that means I'm left with "Cool Whip" which is not even a distant cousin to the dairy family. In fact, the ingredient list reads like a chem lab experiment: water, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated coconut and palm kernel oil (CPKO), sodium caseinate, vanilla extract, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60 (glycosperse), and beta carotene. Not exactly "down on the farm goodness". And if I want to avoid the non recyclable #5 tub (check your own municipality to see if it's recyclable in your area), I've got no other option but to make it myself.
Which is actually really easy. The ingredient list reads like this: Heavy Whipping Cream and Sugar. I put my metal mixing bowl in the fridge and let it get all cold. Then I put it on my mixer (you could do this by hand, if you're a masochist) and whip it good. I pour in some sugar as I go.
It's pretty hard to fuck this up. Unless you whip it for too long, in which case I believe you'd get butter. Very sweet butter. Which I would probably still eat because, well, I just would.
It takes less than five minutes to make the real deal at home and oh, it is so yummy! Store it in the fridge, it will last for days, if you have that kind of willpower. And if she starts to lose some of her "oomph" (technical term) just whip her a little more. It's ok. She likes it.
12 comments:
Real whip cream is soooooooooo good and easy. I never understood why anyone bothered with the tub stuff. It tastes like the tub. You can even make fresh whip cream with honey instead of sugar. A little chocolate and you have yourself a little moose action. In order to not horrify any wildlife at the beech in a few weeks, I personally have a restraining order on the stuff, but I'm glad someone else is getting the goods. (Those pelicans are real bitches.)
Oh, Man! I LOVE homemade whipped topping. The first time I had it my husband made it for me, and it was like, "Wow! How'd you do that? That's like magic!" We use powdered sugar instead of regular sugar, and I've gotten pretty close to making very sweet butter before from whipping too long ;). But it was still pretty good ;).
Try using powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar - it makes a big difference! You can also add mint, vanilla, almond or any other extract you crave.
If you use raw cream, it makes the best whipped cream you've ever had. The taste is phenomenal, you hardly have to use any sugar.
If you let it go too long you do get butter and it is the best butter you will ever have (assuming raw cream - never made it with pasteurized).
Now that I actually have a mixer I can hardly wait to make my own whip cream. The ingredients on the tub version are a little frightening.
I haven't seen local strawberries yet, but supposedly the pick-your-own place will have them next month. I'm going up with a few friends to make a day of it. Homemade whipped cream on top would be just perfect (of course, I could always add some yellow cake on bottom for a shortcake...Yum!)
That sounds incredibly easy!
I am looking for whipping cream that doesn't come in a plastic jug. Maybe I should send an email to the people who sell milk in glass bottles.
Store it in the fridge. Are you kidding? It WILL be gone within an hour. Between me, my girls, my husband and my dog, nothing that good can last for more than a couple of hours.
It staggers me the number of things I am just now learning are quick and easy to make - yogurt, bread (from a refrigerator dough recipe) - and now whipped cream!
Jam? Are you making jam?! Mmmmmmm. I need to go berry picking! love real whip cream.
yeah, this was one of those things I made once and haven't bought the canned version since...it's like a different (way better) food altogether, isn't it? strawberries are out here too...I've fallen in love all over again.
Don't forget the vanilla!
And if you add powdered sugar and cocoa powder (Dutch processed for more chocolate oomph) you can use it as icing on a cake! Yummm!
Trust me.
*YOU CAN BUY WHIPPED CREAM IN TUBS?*
*REALLY?*
Seriously, I'm not stirring here, but I didn't know you could buy it like that. Over here, you just buy cream and whip it up. You can buy the canned stuff, but it's pretty horrible, and veyr expensive, so everyone I know always whips their own. Buying it already whipped is just...odd. Doesn't it go flat?
I'm just wondering what they'll invent next. Maybe soap that's already bubbly so you don't have to rub it on the facewasher to get a lather, or something...?
Daharja,
Yeah, don't get too excited. That "stuff" in the tubs? NOT WHIPPED CREAM -- it's "Whipped Topping" and it tastes like a chemical factory.
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