Which cream whips, which can I boil, and what is the difference?

British cream names are legally defined by minimum fat content, which makes them unusually informative — unlike in some countries, 'single' and 'double' are not vague marketing terms. Once you can place a cream on the fat ladder, you can predict exactly what it will do.

Step by step

1. Read the fat percentage, not the name, when substituting.Fat content is the property that matters, and it is on the pack. Thirty per cent is the whipping threshold; anything meaningfully below it will not whip no matter how long you beat it.
2. Match the cream to the heat.Fat protects the proteins from coagulating. Double cream and full-fat crème fraîche can be boiled and reduced. Single cream, soured cream and half-fat crème fraîche cannot — they go in off the heat or at the very end.
3. Choose whipping cream over double for volume, double for stability.Whipping cream gives a lighter, larger-volume foam with a wider margin for error. Double cream gives a denser, firmer one that holds longer but is over-whipped in seconds. For a chantilly to pipe, whipping. For a cream that must survive a buffet, double, whipped carefully.
4. Whip cold, in a cold bowl.The structure depends on partly solid fat globules linking up. Warm cream cannot form it and turns to butter instead. Fridge-cold cream, a chilled bowl and a chilled whisk make a real difference.
5. Substitute upwards, then dilute.You can make something close to single cream from double cream plus milk. You cannot make double cream from single cream by any means. When in doubt, buy the higher fat one — it does everything the lower one does.
6. Treat UHT and long-life cream as a separate case.UHT double and whipping cream can be whipped, but the heat treatment weakens the structure and it needs to be very cold and often takes longer. It is a good store cupboard standby for cooking and a poor one for piping.

Tips

• Cream that will not whip is nearly always either too warm or below 30 per cent fat. Check the pack before you blame the whisk.
• Over-whipped cream can often be rescued by whisking in a splash of cold unwhipped cream by hand. Once it has gone to butter, it cannot.
• A little icing sugar rather than caster sugar in whipped cream helps it hold, because of the cornflour in it.
• For a hot sauce with soured cream or yoghurt in it, take the pan off the heat first, stir a ladle of the hot liquid into the cream, then return the mixture to the pan.
• Cream freezes badly whipped and adequately as a cooked component. If you must freeze it, freeze it in a sauce rather than on its own.

Common mistakes

• Trying to whip single cream — At around 18 per cent fat there is not enough fat to form the network that traps air. No amount of whisking, chilling or added sugar changes that. It is a physical limit, not a technique problem.
• Boiling a sauce with single or soured cream in it — The proteins coagulate and the sauce goes grainy. Use double cream or full-fat crème fraîche if the sauce has to boil, or add the lower-fat cream off the heat.
• Buying extra thick double cream to whip — It has already been mechanically thickened and cannot be aerated. The pot usually says 'do not whip' in small print. Buy ordinary double cream.

Alternatives

• Half cream — around 12% fat: Pourable, thin, for coffee and cereal. Will not whip, splits readily in heat. Rarely worth buying over single cream.
• Single cream — around 18% fat: The standard pouring cream. Will not whip under any circumstances and will curdle if it boils. Fine stirred into a sauce off the heat or at a bare simmer, and good over puddings.
• Soured cream — around 18% fat: Single cream soured with a culture. Same fat, so same rules — do not boil it. Its acidity means it also curdles more readily than single cream does, so it goes in at the very end.
• Whipping cream — around 35% fat: The lowest fat cream that whips reliably. Whips to a lighter, softer foam than double cream and gives more volume per millilitre. Boils safely. The best choice for piping and for folding into mousses.
• Crème fraîche — around 30% fat, full fat version: Cultured cream, thick and slightly tart. The culture and fat together make it unusually stable, so it can be boiled in a sauce without splitting — one of the few cultured dairy products that can. Half-fat crème fraîche is much less stable and will split.
• Double cream — around 48% fat: The British workhorse. Whips fast and stiffly — so fast that over-whipping is the usual mistake. Boils and reduces without splitting, which makes it the right cream for sauces. Roughly twice the fat of single.
• Extra thick double cream: Double cream that has been homogenised so it is already thick in the pot. It will not whip, because the structure has already been used. Spoon it, do not try to beat it.
• Clotted cream — around 55% fat: Scalded and cooled so the fat separates and crusts. Not for whipping or cooking, though a spoonful stirred into a sauce at the end is excellent. A protected regional product in the case of Cornish clotted cream.

Questions people ask