How to Make Heavy Cream with Milk and Butter

Ms Shi and Mr He

This simple 2-ingredient recipe shows us how to make heavy cream that can be easily whipped into stiff peaks. It often happens to me that when I wanted to make a dessert but found out that I had no heavy cream in the fridge. Given that so many dessert recipes heavily rely on heavy cream as a key ingredient, it would be great to know how to make heavy cream with milk and butter.

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 5

Cooling Time 8

Total Time 8 15

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 300 g

Calories 1165 kcal

Equipment

kitchen scale or measuring cups
blender
saucepan
hand mixer
mixing bowl
Plastic Food Wrap

Ingredients

150 g unsalted butter (About 1⅓ sticks of butter; no need to soften before using.)
150 g whole milk (About ½ cup + 2 tbsps)
30 g powdered sugar (Or granulated sugar; optional)
5 g vanilla extract (1 tsp; optional)

Instructions

Add butter and milk to a saucepan, cook and stir over medium low heat, turn off the heat right after the butter is fully melted. Do not bring the mixture to a boil.
Pour the mixture into a blender. Blend on high speed (or juice mode) for 1 minute.
Transfer the blended mixture to a large mixing bowl. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature. Cover the mixture with a piece of plastic food wrap. Tightly press the food wrap onto the surface of the mixture to prevent any water droplets from forming. Keep the mixture in the refrigerator overnight or until it's completely cooled. Keep the mixture in the refrigerator overnight or until it's completely cooled. Homemade heavy cream (unwhipped) can be stored in the refrigerator for about 5 days.
Once you are ready to whip the cream. Take the mixing bowl out from the refrigerator, remove the plastic food wrap. Optionally, add powdered sugar (or granulated sugar) and vanilla extract to sweeten the cream.
When the room temperature is high, you can whip the cream over an ice bath to make it easier to be whipped. Use the beater of your hand mixer to gently stir the heavy whipping cream until the powdered sugar is roughly dissolved. (In this way, the powdered sugar won't splash out when you whip the cream at the next step.)
Beat the heavy whipping cream with a hand mixer on medium speed until your desired whipping stage. (*See Note1 for different whipping stages) Whipped heavy cream can typically be stored in the refrigerator for about 1 to 2 days.

Video

Notes

1. Heavy Cream Whipping Stages:

– Soft peaks: Lift the beaters and the cream will drop off like melted ice cream. You just start to see trails of cream, but they will gradually dissolve into the cream. (Soft peak cream is good for frosting a cake, check out my boba cake recipe, since it can create a smooth surface. You can also add it to your drinks or pancakes.)

– Medium peaks: Lift the beaters and the cream won’t drop off. When you hold your beaters up with the cream tip pointing to the ceiling, the medium peaks will slowly bend down and eventually hold its shape at 45 degrees pointing to the floor. (Medium peak cream is good for piping patterns. You can also use it as a filling for most of the desserts, such as my roll cake, strawberry cream puffs, and rainbow crape cake.)

– Stiff peaks: When you hold your beaters up with the cream tip pointing to the ceiling, the stiff peaks will hold its shape and point straight up to the ceiling. (We often use stiff peak whipped cream as a strong filling for desserts. Mochi, for example, needs a strong filling to hold its soft skin, otherwise it will collapse or turn flat.)

2. Stabilized cream

By mixing 1 tsp of gelatin to your homemade or store-bought heavy whipping cream, you will get stabilized whipped cream that can hold its shape under room temperature for a whole day! This type of cream is perfect as a strong mochi filling.

Check out detailed instructions in this post.

Keyword Homemade Heavy Cream, How to Make Heavy Cream