How to flavour and whip cream

By: April Carter
From: Decorated
Photographer: Danielle Wood

Flavoured and whipped cream makes for an indulgent topping or accompaniment to cakes. It’s an easy way to make a cake into a dessert or to bring in an extra flavour. You’ll need about 300 ml to cover the top of a 20 cm cake. Around 150 ml is enough to cover a 15 cm cake or to serve in a dish on the side.

For 300 ml double (heavy) cream you will need about 1 tablespoon of icing (confectioners’) sugar. It’s important to sweeten cream to serve with a cake or dessert, otherwise the contrast can make the cream taste savoury. Sweetening the cream will also bring out the other flavours.

There are so many different flavours that you can experiment with. Try any of the following:

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
	vanilla seeds
	extracts like rose, orange blossom and almond
	the grated zest of a lemon, lime or orange
	a few tablespoons of lemon curd, caramel sauce or runny honey, (you may need to warm the caramel slightly and let it cool to room temperature so that it will combine easily with the cream)
	a tablespoon of cocoa powder
	a teaspoon of ground cinnamon or ground cardamom seeds
	a teaspoon or two of elderflower or rhubarb cordial
	a teaspoon or two of espresso (it pairs nicely with chocolate cake)
	a teaspoon or two of kirsch, grand marnier or amaretto for a boozy kick
	sprinkle strawberries, raspberries or blackberries with some caster sugar and fold them into already-sweetened and whipped cream for a fruity rippled effect

Method

Add the flavouring and icing sugar and to the cream, have a taste and make any adjustments before you start whisking. It’s much easier to adjust the flavour and sweetness at this stage.
Whisk until the cream forms soft peaks and just starts to hold its shape. Make sure you lift your whisk above the cream to get plenty of air in there. It’s very easy to over-whisk and end up with a fluffy-looking split texture so I prefer to whisk by hand so that I can keep an eye on things. Don’t worry if you end up over-whipping, just add a little extra cream to bring it back to the right consistency. Transfer the whipped cream to your cake or serving dish and serve straight away.

Tags:: cake; cakes; baking; decorating; party; special; occasion; birthday; april; carter

How to flavour and whip cream

Ingredients

Method

Recipes

Books

Authors

Collections

Store

The Feed