Basic Whipped Cream
Serves 2 cups (0.5 L) Difficulty 1/5 Ingredients 3 Steps 5
This recipe gives a step-by-step guide for making homemade whipped cream. For more of the theory, check out its main ingredient page.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (0.25 L) heavy or whipping cream, cold
- 1–2 tbsp granulated or powdered sugar to taste (optional)
- Flavoring of choice (e.g. vanilla; optional)
Steps
- Chill mixing bowl and electric mixer beaters in refrigerator at least 10 minutes. Use whisk attachment if available. Cream will not rise if mixer is warm.
- Pour cold cream into chilled bowl. Whip at medium speed until foamy.
- Continue until cream thickens around beaters and leaves visible traces. Watch closely; easy to overwhip.
- Whip in 10–30 second bursts to desired stiffness, checking regularly. Stop immediately if grains or lumps form.
- Refrigerate until use.
Notes from the original
- You must use a grade of cream with a fat content of at least 30%, since the fat is what stabilizes the whipped cream.
- Unlike when whipping egg whites, it's not important to make sure there's no fat in the mixture (after all, the cream itself is high in fat). It is important, however, to make sure that the bowl and mixers are dry and cold and that the cream is cold.
- It's very feasible to whip cream by hand—much easier than whipping egg whites by hand. In fact, if you're not working with a very large volume of cream, whipping by hand can help make sure you don't overwhip it.
- Whipping at medium speed (as opposed to high speed) is a little slower but helps to create a more stable foam.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Basic Whipped Cream” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-10-04, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Whipped Cream.jpg by Rhett Sutphin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.