I love cultured whipping cream (crème fraîche). It’s so easy, delicious, and probiotic! Best of all, fermented whipping cream is more stable than typical whipping cream. Making it the perfect option for serving with scones, cakes, and pies.
How to use cultured whipping cream (Crème fraîche)
I nearly always have cultured whipping cream in my fridge. My kids love it, and a dollop of crème fraîche makes everything taste deliciously fancy.
Here are a few of my favorite ways to use cultured whipping cream:
- A last-minute addition to creamy sauces like pasta Alfredo.
- A sugar-free breakfast topping for waffles, pancakes, and crepes.
- Turn it into probiotic ice cream!
- Make probiotic treats like chocolate truffles or banana pudding.
- We love whipping up cultured butter for toast. Yum!
Dairy cultures:
Crème fraîche is made with a mesophilic dairy culture. Mesophilic means that the culture will ferment at room temperature. So it is super easy, and doesn’t require heating!
Here’s a list of mesophilic cultures that I recommend for culturing whipping cream, along with the required amounts and culturing time:
- Buttermilk: Use 1/4 cup of cultured buttermilk, and culture for at least 12 hours.
- Milk Kefir: Use 1 Tbsp of kefir grains, and culture for 8-12 hours. Don’t leave your kefir grains in the cream too long or it will separate the fat from the whey, and you’ll end up with butter! Even after 12 hours the fat will have floated to the top, so mix it up after removing the grains.
- Mesophilic Yogurt Culture: Use 2 Tbsp of heirloom yogurt (not typical store-bought yogurt) and culture for 12-24 hours.
- Sour Cream: If you are using a store-bought sour cream, make sure it’s fermented. It should have probiotic cultures listed on the ingredients. Use 1/4 cup of sour cream and culture for at least 12 hours.
- Crème fraîche: Looking for the traditional flavor of crème fraîche? Use a specific crème fraîche starter.
Cultured Whipping Cream (Crème Fraîche)
Cultured whipping cream is an easy and delicious way to get more probiotics into your diet. Fermenting also helps to stabilize whipping cream, making it perfect for serving with scones, crepes, and waffles.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 2 cups 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Fermented
- Cuisine: French
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 2 cups of whipping cream (30-35% milkfat)
- 2 – 4 Tbsp mesophilic dairy culture (see section above for options)
Instructions
- Mix the cream and culture in a glass jar.
- Cap with a finger-tight lid. Leave cream out at room temperature for 8-24 hours. The exact time will depend on the culture you use and how sour you want it to be. Don’t over-culture it as it will curd.
Notes
- Culturing whipping cream can result in a thick sour cream consistency (particularly if you use sour cream culture.) The best way to keep the cream thin enough to be whipped up for desserts or stirred into a soup, etc. is to avoid culturing it for more than 12 hours.
- See the section above for details on 5 different mesophilic dairy cultures. They will each bring their own particular flavor to the whipping cream.
karron lane
and then what? does the cream need to be whipped or is thick on its own after fermentation? thanks.
Emillie
Depending on your culture it might thicken (like creme fraiche). However, I usually don’t culture until it’s thick so I can use it for making whipping cream (by whipping it), ice cream, etc.
Amalia
Can I use milk kefir with out the grains, I mean, only the fermented bebarege?
Emillie
Yes, it should work. However, if you are using store-bought milk kefir, then it’s usually more like yogurt culture than kefir culture. I would try it even if you have store bought kefir. You should know within 4-6 hours if it is working.
Jessica Schafer
Do you need to chill it after culturing the cream, so that it can be whipped? I’ve never had success whipping cream that’s not cold, bu maybe this is different because of the culturing?
Emillie
I assume so. I’ve never tried whipping it when the cream was warm. 🙂
Charity
How do you know if it’s cultured enough? It was out for almost 24 hours and tastes a little tart. I guess I expected it to be thicker or something. I just want to make sure it’s cultured not sour.
Emillie
When it tastes sour enough for you, then it’s cultured. It will thicken, but it’s probably best to stop before then and whip the cream slightly for thickness. Especially if you don’t want it to be too sour. 24 hours sound perfect. Enjoy!
Luke
This is great and sour! I love it!
Sherry Myers
Your directions don’t say to drain it, but the directions on the bought starter says you have to. Do you have to drain it?
Emillie Parrish
Great question! I don’t strain my cultured whipping cream. However, if you want it to be very thick, then feel free to strain it through two pieces of cheesecloth. It’s similar to the process of making Greek yogurt. You’re simply straining away the excess whey. Enjoy!
Robin
I took some of my milk kedir grains and added to 35% cream of high quality. In 24 hours I had cream so thick it had to be scooped out of the mason jar to get it out. It was slightly sour. I put it in the fridge and it thickened even more. I will never be able to fish the grains out, so I guess I’ll eat them too!
Emillie Parrish
I love kefir whipping cream! I’m guessing your grains are the tiny individual ones? (Rather than a single large grain). In that case you probably will have to eat them. Hopefully, you have lots! Enjoy, Emillie
TheDingoDear
@Robin – I recently started using whipping cream and mixing it with whole (lightly pasteurized) milk and the first and second time the kefir was very thick. Worse comes to worse, take half of the extra thick kefir and dilute it with milk if you can in a much bigger container. I use the steel strainer (which my grains don’t seem to mind at all).
Diluting your extra thick kefir with milk will make it easier to strain and then collect your grains. If you don’t mind at all, do that again to the other half of the grains. I guess you’ll lose your extra thick kefir in the process but you can get it back but in a more controlled way. I found a sweet spot of 20% whipping cream, 80% whole milk (you can even do 35/50 or even 50/50) and leaving it in a dark cupboard for even just 6 hours, but usually between 8-10 hours. Definitely not more than 12 hours because it becomes very thick super fast. I leave the container ajar and put a mesh cheesecloth in between the cover and the lid (that’s optional) and all I can say is wow, the taste is extremely smooth and slightly buttery. Add a bit of maple syrup and a bit of cinnamon if you’d like, and you might get a top notch delicious drink with a bit of that whip cream buttery feel. Hope this helps.
Emillie Parrish
This is great advice! Thanks for sharing! I only used the small kefir grain for a short period while traveling in Europe (a fellow fermenter in the UK gave it to me for my trip). I have the large-style grain at home. So I don’t have a lot of experience with it.
TheDingoDear
Hello Emilie, I also am pretty new to to this, but fortunately I didn’t realize my manager at work was a seasoned milk kefir maker. She was the one who suggested the whipping cream idea which she used for her family. I decided to try different ratios of milk and whipping cream which yielded even smoother, and less heavy results. So for being a newcomer I consider it good luck to have such a great teacher so soon. Smiles. And getting such great results at this early stage of kefir making, and thus getting spoiled by that :))). What an amazing little gift you got from getting small grains from another fermenter in the UK. If you mind me asking, what is the difference between your large-style grain you mentioned and small kefir grains. Are the differences due to the their respective age they have been in kefir making?
Thank you very much for this educational site on fermenting.
PS. I’m also a fan of Vietnamese pickling.
Emillie Parrish
Having fermented with both types of grains, I think they’re different cultures. The grains I received in the UK were small, little seeds, rather like water kefir grains. My grains are a family heirloom culture from my MIL. They are a single, larger grain. It sometimes divides, but usually only after it’s larger than 1 Tbsp in size. Since I haven’t had both to compare side-by-side, I’m not sure if the flavors are different. Hum… maybe something to explore. 🙂
Cheers, Emillie
TheDingoDear
That’s amazing. Single larger grains, I have yet to see one. But yes, it sounds like the smaller ones you got were of a different type of culture.
I’m intrigued by the single grain. I’ll look it up on YT.
On another note, I have yet to try this, but I do intend at some point to try my hand at kefir soda from the whey just for fun, just to say I made it, smiles.
Emillie Parrish
I’ve done kefir soda a few times. It’s pretty simple! I recommend making sure the whey is really clear because then your soda will be clear. 🙂 If you want to see my grains, there’s a photo on this post: https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/easy-homemade-milk-kefir/ And my recommendations for making kefir soda: https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/milk-kefir-second-ferment-flavor-sodas/
Cheers! Emillie
TheDingoDear
Thank you for all of this info, Emilie. I’m so digging your whole blog site which is teaching me so much about fermenting and so many other amazing things.
I’m looking into making soda, and even some alcohol, just out of curiosity haha. It’s all so tempting. I want to make butter as well and if I may ask does kefir butter taste like regular butter, could it replace it for most applications or would it taste too sweet or yeasty for foods like mussels or eggs or green beans or even steak and breast chicken?
On another topic, I remember mentioning I got into Vietnamese pickling, which is a 1:1 ratio of regular vinegar and water, and between 1-4 cups of turbinado sugar, (with carrots, daikon, cabbage, etc…), what are your thoughts on sugar with vinegar, do they help each other out, or does vinegar mostly help to neutralize the sugar crystals. I wondered about that because I largely prefer sweetening my brines for pickling.
Lastly, I can’t express enough how amazing the combination of whip cream and milk has been. Even just 10% of whip cream makes a huge difference in creating that smooth taste. Almost like ice cream with some organic maple syrup and a dash of cinnamon. The taste is unbelievable. But despite having found my new taste home I do want to branch out thanks to your blog.
Sorry this has been such a long reply. Cheers!!!
Emillie Parrish
It sounds like you’ve really caught the fermenting bug! 😉 To answer your questions:
– Cultured butter has a bit more flavor than regular butter, maybe less sweet, but mostly it has a cultured, slightly sour flavor. We like it better for pretty much everything savory.
– That pickle recipe sounds like a quick pickle rather than fermented pickle. I imagine the flavors are nicely balanced. I do have a few sweet pickle recipes that use raw ACV with sugar or honey to ferment. 🙂
Glad you’re loving your kefir! We use cultured cream to make desserts all the time (ice cream, pudding, etc.) My kids are fans. Enjoy, Emillie