Perfect whipped cream looks impressive, but really just requires a few tips.By Anne Mendelson
Real whipped cream doesn't get much respect anymore. It's not trendy enough to be worthy of attention from foodies and a little bit of a mystery for cooks in a hurry. But you can serve up a luscious bowl of real, rich whipped heavy cream that will dazzle your family and dinner guests alike, if you know just a few key tips for turning cream into something special.
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Whipped cream is an aerated colloid - what you get by taking an emulsion of butterfat globules dispersed in whey and agitating it until the globule membranes become halfway disrupted and begin forming fragile bubble-walls around tiny pockets of air introduced by beating.
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The hitch is knowing the right point to stop, before the process slops over into a second chemical card trick known in plain English as butter-making. But anyone can whip cream, without fancy equipment or scientific knowledge:
1. Get some heavy cream. If ultrapasteurized and/or homogenized products are all you find, the cream won't whip as fast or taste as magically fresh, but it will still be gorgeous. Chill 1 or 2 cups of cream along with a beating implement and container - a food processor or electric stand mixer with bowl, a hand mixer, a whisk or an old-fashioned rotary egg-beater with any bowl able to accommodate about 2 cups per original cup of unwhipped cream.
2. Put the cream in the bowl, start whipping and watch it quickly or more slowly thicken and expand to a light airy mass. Pause from time to time to judge the texture; stop when it's either softly billowy (the orthodox gourmet preference) or very stiff, almost ready to turn to butter (my preference). If you like, sprinkle in a little granulated sugar and a touch of vanilla extract in the last minutes; I'd suggest 2 teaspoons of sugar and a drop of vanilla per cup of cream, but there are people who like much more of both.
3. Bask in the enjoyment of what you've just made.
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Zester Daily contributor Anne Mendelson is a freelance writer and culinary historian who has written for various newspapers and magazines. She is the author of "Stand Facing the Stove" (a biography of the authors of "The Joy of Cooking"; Holt, 1996) and "Milk" (Knopf, 2008). The past recipient of honors including a fellowship at the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library and the Oxford Symposium's Sophie Coe Prize in Food History, she is currently working on a book about Chinese food in America with the assistance of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
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