Whipped cream



Whipped cream is cream that has been beaten by a mixer, whisk, or fork until it is light and fluffy. Whipped cream is often sweetened and sometimes flavored with vanilla, and is often called Chantilly cream or crème Chantilly.

Food chemistry
Cream containing 30% or more butterfat can be mixed with air, and the resulting colloid is roughly double the volume of the original cream as air bubbles are captured into a network of fat droplets. If, however, the whipping is continued, the fat droplets will stick together destroying the colloid and forming butter. Confectioner's (icing) sugar is sometimes added to the colloid in order to stiffen the mixture and to reduce the risk of overwhipping.

Lower-fat cream (or milk) does not whip well, while higher-fat cream produces a more stable foam.

Methods of whipping
Cream is usually whipped with a whisk, an electric or hand mixer, or (with some effort) a fork.

Whipped cream is often flavored with sugar, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, orange, and so on. Many 19th-century recipes recommend adding gum tragacanth to stabilize whipped cream; a few include whipped egg whites. Nowadays, gelatin, diphosphate (E450), and various other substances are used in commercial stabilizers.

Whipped cream may also be made in a whipping siphon, typically using nitrous oxide rather than carbon dioxide as the gas in the cartridges. Ready-to-use in pressurized containers are also sold at retail. Its discovery and first use was by G. Frederick Smith (PhD) in the 1930s who with his brother Allyne Smith, at GFS Chemicals, created the hygienic method of dispensing the product under pressure. They called their new company Instantwhip.

History
Whipped cream, often sweetened and aromatised, was popular in the 16th century, with recipes in the writings of Cristoforo di Messisbugo (Ferrara, 1549), Bartolomeo Scappi (Rome, 1570), and Lancelot de Casteau (Liège, 1604). It was called milk snow (neve di latte, neige de lait). A 1545 English recipe, "A Dyschefull of Snow", includes whipped egg whites as well, and is flavored with rosewater and sugar. In these recipes, and until the end of the 19th century, naturally separated cream is whipped, typically with willow or rush branches, and the resulting foam on the surface would from time to time be skimmed off and drained, a process taking an hour or more. By the end of the 19th century, centrifuge-separated, high-fat cream made it much faster and easier to make whipped cream. The French name crème fouettée 'whipped cream' is attested in 1629, and the English name "whipped cream" in 1673. The name "snow cream" continued to be used in the 17th century.

Various desserts consisting of whipped cream in pyramidal shapes with coffee, liqueurs, chocolate, fruits, and so on either in the mixture or poured on top were called crème en mousse 'cream in a foam', crème fouettée, crème mousseuse 'foamy cream', mousse 'foam', and fromage à la Chantilly 'Chantilly-style cheese'. Modern mousses, including mousse au chocolat, are a continuation of this tradition.

Crème Chantilly
Crème Chantilly is another name for whipped cream. The difference between "whipped cream" and "crème Chantilly" is not systematic. Some authors distinguish between the two, with crème Chantilly being sweetened, and whipped cream not. However, most authors treat the two as synonyms, with both being sweetened, neither being sweetened, or treating sweetening as optional. Many authors use only one of the two names (for the sweetened or unsweetened version), so it is not clear if they distinguish the two.

The invention of crème Chantilly is often credited incorrectly, and without evidence, to Francois Vatel, maître d'hôtel at the Château de Chantilly in the mid-17th century. But the name Chantilly is first connected with whipped cream in the mid-18th century, around the time that the Baronne d'Oberkirch praised the "cream" served at a lunch at the Hameau de Chantilly &mdash; but did not say what exactly it was, or call it Chantilly cream.

The names "crème Chantilly", "crème de Chantilly", "crème à la Chantilly", or "crème fouettée à la Chantilly" only become common in the 19th century. In 1806, the first edition of Viard's Cuisinier Impérial mentions neither "whipped" nor "Chantilly" cream, but the 1820 edition mentions both.

The name Chantilly was probably used because the château had become a symbol of refined food.

Imitation whipped cream
Imitations of whipped cream, often sold under the name whipped topping or squirty cream, are commercially available. They may be used for various reasons:
 * To exclude dairy ingredients to avoid milk allergies.
 * To support food taboos such as veganism or kosher meat and milk rules.
 * To provide extended shelf life (often in the freezer).
 * To reduce the price—though some popular brands cost twice as much as whipped cream.
 * For convenience.

Whipped topping normally contains some mixture of partially hydrogenated oil, sweeteners, water, and stabilizers and emulsifiers added to prevent syneresis, similar to margarine instead of the butter fat in the cream used in whipped cream.

Uses
Whipped cream or crème Chantilly is a popular topping for desserts such as pie, ice cream, cupcakes, cake, milkshakes and puddings.