Here’s my recipe for whipped cream. Actually, it’s technically called Chantilly Cream which might sound fancy but it’s just whipped cream that’s lightly sweetened and flavoured with vanilla. It’s basically the better whipped cream!
For Stabilised Whipped Cream that will hold its form for 2 to 3 days, see recipe here. (I pretty much always stabilise my cream these days).
Whipped cream
The whipped cream I make “all the time” is actually called Chantilly cream. This is just the proper French name for sweetened whipped cream – as opposed to cream whipped without sugar. It has the same fluffy texture as plain whipped cream but a more luxurious flavour and an elegant satiny sheen. Basically, it’s a classier, tastier version of plain whipped cream!
All the things I use whipped cream for!
So many things! Here are just some ideas:
decorate and fill cakes
pipe onto cupcakes or mini cheesecakes
fill éclairs, profiteroles and apple turnovers
dollop or pipe on fruit
serve with apple pie and other pies, and apple crumble
Ingredients
All you need is cream, vanilla and icing sugar (powdered sugar) to make whipped cream (Chantilly Cream). For the stabilised option, you will also need mascarpone cream. Some notes on each of these ingredient is below the photo!
Cream – Heavy / thickened cream, or cream suitable for whipping (the carton should say). Here in Australia, there are also pouring creams which which will not whip. Such creams are clearly labelled as such!
Make sure your cream is fridge cold. Warm cream won’t whip!
Vanilla – For the best flavour, use vanilla beans. Else, in order of preference, vanilla bean paste (which has the little vanilla specks in it), vanilla extract and lastly, vanilla essence (which is the most economical because it is artificial – and tastes as such).
Icing sugar / powdered sugar – This is used to sweeten the cream. It’s finer and lighter than caster sugar (superfine sugar) so it dissolves more easily and adds a slightly more delicate sweetness to the cream compared to ordinary sugar.
However, caster sugar (superfine sugar) can be used in a pinch. The quantity to use is in the recipe.
How to make whipped cream (Chantilly cream)
Whether you are making plain or stabilised whipped cream, the method is the same:
Beat – Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat on high speed with a handheld electric beater or stand mixer. Move the beater around the bowl and if need be, stop once or twice to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula.
Fluffy with peaks – Beat for 1 1/2 minutes (for 1 cup of cream) until it becomes fluffy and you have peaks that stand straight upright, as pictured above. The more cream you start with, the longer it will take. As a guide, 2 cups of cream takes about 2 minutes.
Do not beat for ages else you’ll end up with butter! (Really, I’m not kidding. Butter is made from cream – just beat for ages and butter will form!) But before butter, the cream will become chunky and look a bit lumpy.
And that’s it! Ready to spread onto cakes, pipe onto cupcakes or dollop on bowls of fruit!
How to store whipped cream
Plain, non-stabilised whipped cream is best whipped just before serving. It will start to deflate and “melt” a bit after around 1 hour (sooner, on hot days).
Having said that though, it is still fine to eat for however long the shelf life of the tub of cream you used is. It’s just that the cream will be deflated!
To be honest though, these days, I pretty much always stabilise my cream when I use it to decorate cakes and cupcakes because this way I know that leftovers will be as great as they were when freshly made. See the separate recipe here – Stabilised Whipped Cream. Hope you find it useful! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Whipped cream – with stabilised option
Ingredients
Whipped cream
- 1 cup heavy / thickened cream or whipping cream , cold – NOT pouring cream! (Note 1)
- 1/2 cup icing sugar/powdered sugar , sifted, sub 2 tbsp white sugar (Note 2)
Vanilla flavour – choose ONE (Note 3):
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (my standard) – best economical option
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste – my most used "good" option
- 1 vanilla pod , seeds scraped (PREMIUM option)
Instructions
- Whip cream – Place the cream, icing sugar, vanilla of choice plus mascarpone (if making stabilised cream). Whip using an electric beater on medium high, moving the beater around the bowl, or until whipped to stiffness you are after. Then it's ready for use!
- Stiffness options – Whip for around 1 1/2 minutes if you want soft peaks (kind of dollops) or 2 minutes for stiff peaks (for piping). See in post for photos of soft vs stiff peaks. If scaling up, it will take longer.
- To use – Fill a piping bag with nozzle of choice and pipe. Spread onto cakes or dollop on a bowl of fruit or onto pies!
Nagi, Love all your recipes and cook book (which I bought one for my daughter as well), Have a lovely christmas day!
Just going to pop a cheeky 5 stars on all the recipes of yours I have used this Christmas! Thanks again Nagi you are a Wonder Woman and this website is my happy place.
I am a huge fan of yours but this recipe did not work for me. The whipping cream and mascarpone mixture did not stabilize. I even kept it refrigerated overnight and it was very soft. I don’t know what went wrong but I followed your recipe exactly. Very disappointed.
Hi Lucy! Can I ask what brand of marscapone you used? And did you ensure you used cream for whipping, NOT cream for pouring? Because there are pouring creams that will not whip! 🙂 N x
Hi Nagi,
I used Wholefoods traditional mascarpone. And yes, I used organic heavy whipping cream (Horizon brand). But I whipped the mascarpone straight out of the refrigerator and not at room temperature. Is that why it didn’t work?
Same thing happened to me. It was not at stiff peaks after 2mins. I then increased the amount of marscarpone and did another 2 mins but still was very soft.
Hi Nagi, can I use marscapone cheese that was thawed to the same temperature as the fridge cold cream?
Wondering if anyone has made this and used to put on top of an irish coffee etc.. like the idea of having a stabilised cream ready to float when having a large family gathering, and regular whipped cream normally sinks…. any help or comment appreciated!
Hi Nagi,
I forgot to rate your recipe in my last post, and forgot to ask a question.
Are your recipes converted from cup to metric, or from metric to cup?
It’s helpful to know which is the original as auto-converters are so often wrong so I prefer to do the conversions myself.
Thank you
Has anyone used Woolworths mascarpone in this? I’m in a small regional town and woolies brand is all I can access.
Hi Nagi,
Thank you so much for this recipe. Made it yesterday, and it was lovely (leftover cream still sitting proudly in the fridge). I wanted it to serve with meringue so didn’t want it too sweet. 1 TBS (15 ml) powdered sugar was perfect for me. I will make it for a future sponge cake too and think that 2 TBS might be enough for that, but I’ll taste just before it’s fully whipped in case I need to add more.
I was lucky enough to find some 45% cream, preservative free, so managed to avoid the tasteless, overly preserved 35% whipping cream which is usually the best we get in Toronto. Having now used the 45% cream, I’m hesitant to try the recipe with the 35%, but I’d be interested to know if you or your readers have had success with it as it’s much cheaper than the good stuff.
Thank you for the double-bagging piping advice. I’m nearly 80 and such a great idea never occurred to me. Brilliant!
Hi Vivienne. Greetings from Ottawa!
I just made Chantilly cream with 35% whipping cream and it turned out perfectly! I think you can feel confident giving it a try!
Candace
Thanks, Candace. I will try the 35% next time.
I made it with 35% just now for tomorrow evenings desert and it whipped up beautifully!
Can you use this on a pavlova?
I used it on a pavlova type of dessert: meringue nests filled with chestnut puree and topped with the cream. I make proper pavlovas (with fruit) quite often and am sure this cream will be a great improvement on whipping cream alone (at least the type we get in Canada). I used just 1 TB powdered sugar to counteract the sweetness of the meringue and chestnut, and my family thought it perfect. You could start with 1 TB and taste just before you get to stiff peak stage so you can add more if you wish.
Wish I had read the tip about buying the mascarpone before I purchased woolies brand, now I have to figure out what to do with it, maybe in the béchamel sauce for the cauliflower au gratin.
What a great recipe. I’m going to double it and then make it on the 23rd of December, so I can pipe it on our Christmas Eve hot chocolates and then also use for Christmas Day steamed puddings.
I don’t like sweetened cream. If I leave out the sugar and just use cream and Marscapone will the whipped cream still be stabilised?
Hi Nagi, I made this today, but as I prefer to work in Metric, I flipped the recipe over to it. At that point I noticed the Mascapone doesn’t convert from cups to metric properly… 1/3 cup becomes 200g.
I didn’t add 200g, obviously, but instead used the cup measurement and it worked out to perfection!
But you may want to adjust the conversion info, in case others don’t notice the problem.
5 stars (I’m assuming you’ll make the correction 🙂 )
Mascarpone doesn’t convert correctly or you didn’t convert correctly? 240 grams is one cup so 1/3 is 80 grams.
When I made the comment, clicking the Metric (as opposed to Cup) option on the recipe resulted in it displaying 200g for what was 1/3 Cup. It has now been corrected by the looks of it.
This is so useful. Once, only once, I thought I’d help along the process by taking the mascarpone out of the frig to soften ahead of time. Disaster. Because the cream and mascarpone weren’t the same temperature, it ‘split’ irretrievably, a sad and terrible waste.
Where is Dozer?!!!?
This sounds delicious.
I am planning to make this to add to lemon curd to put in little puff pastry cups. Any suggestions? Do you think this will work with an added ingredient?
Thank you for your help.
Hi Nagi! Could you please start including nutritional information with your recipes again? It was super helpful. Thank you!
Mary, all of Nagi’s recent recipes have the nutritional information, just not this one.
I gave you 5 stars Nagi but I haven’t made this yet, it just makes sense and seems such a great idea! I was wondering if it would be good on a Christmas pavlova?
Hi Catherine! The stabilised cream will absolutely hold up better on Pav than plain cream. But the reason I didn’t list it is because the Pav itself starts to soften once assembled so I figured both plain whipped cream and Pav have similar shelf-lives so I didn’t know if it was worth mentioning. HOWEVER, if it is so you can whip the cream the day before then just pipe it onto the Pav on the day, then ABSOLUTELY!! N x