3 Simple Ways to Thicken Heavy Cream

Many individuals are unaware that there are many distinct varieties of cream until they begin to cook.

There is one sort of cream that is noted for being especially heavy and thick among all the many varieties of creams that people use to help add taste, texture, and volume to their foods: heavy cream.

When individuals use heavy cream in their recipes, they will notice that it provides significantly more texture and volume to the cuisine than most other kinds of creams. However, it is possible that the heavy cream you have does not meet your requirements.

There are a few various methods to add thickness to heavy cream, depending on whether you want something thicker or a different texture than the one that heavy cream may offer to your dish.

The method you choose to thicken your heavy cream will be totally dependent on the components you have on hand, the amount of time you want to spend working with the cream, and whatever approach seems to be the simplest for your case.

This enables you to experiment with several ways for thickening heavy cream and decide which one will become your go-to approach.

Finding Which Method Works for You

In essence, there are three techniques to increase the thickness of heavy cream.

You may heat it, boil it, and whisk it until it achieves the proper consistency without changing the taste or burning it.

You may also thicken your heavy cream using gelatin, which is a popular product used for thickening recipes.

Similarly, you may add cornstarch or flour, which are both common thickening agents.

Each one has its pros and cons to it.

Boiling the heavy cream has the potential to burn it, and even if it does not burn, it may modify the taste significantly.

Adding gelatin may take time and be difficult, particularly if you have never dealt with gelatin before.

Choosing how much flour to add, combining it into a fine mixture, and checking to see whether the cream is thicker may also be difficult.

It may take some trial and error to determine which strategy is ideal for your requirements.

1 – Boiling the Heavy Cream

This technique is sometimes regarded as the most time-consuming and difficult, since you must continually whisk the heavy cream to guarantee that the taste shift is small and that there is little risk of it burning. Having said that, the principle itself is one of the most basic.

You should gently begin heating the heavy cream until it reaches a boiling point.

The reason you need exercise care throughout this process is because heating the cream too quickly and not whisking it well enough may cause the heavy cream to curdle, which is the reverse of what you want.

After it reaches a boiling point, continue stirring it so that it does not burn and starts to thicken.

The degree of thickening that occurs during this process is determined by how long the cream is boiled. The longer you leave things heated, the thicker it will get.

When the heavy cream has reached the proper thickness, continue to reduce the heat.

Once it reaches a temperature that your tongue can take, taste the heavy cream to see whether the change in flavor (which occurs naturally when you heat milk products) will damage the meal that you are attempting to produce.

Keep in mind that a change in flavor is totally natural and should be anticipated if you want to use heavy cream as a main component in a baking recipe.

The change in flavor does not necessarily indicate that you have burned the cream, since scorched cream tastes burnt, but it is something to keep in mind while you are doing this.

2 – Adding Gelatin to the Heavy Cream

This method is regarded as one of the simplest methods to thicken heavy cream without altering its flavor. All you’ll need is the necessary quantity of gelatin for this.

It may be difficult to decide how much gelatin you will need to complete the task, but once you know, adding it to the heavy cream will be one of the simplest things you can do.

Once you’ve determined how much gelatin you’ll need to thicken the heavy cream, read the directions that come with the gelatin to learn how to correctly integrate it into the heavy cream.

Incorrect incorporation might result in poor texture and just specific regions of increased thickness, entirely changing the cream from what you want.

You will also often want a little amount of water to aid in the incorporation of the gelatin, which should be easy to get. Typically, you will use somewhat more water than gelatin.

It is critical to go gently and smoothly when implementing it.

Pouring and mixing in too much gelatin at once may result in an undesirable texture, while pouring it in too slowly can result in a much longer time to get the appropriate texture.

While putting the gelatin into the heavy cream, remember to whip the cream to ensure that all components of it are exposed to the gelatin and thicken appropriately.

3 – Adding Flour or Cornstarch to the Heavy Cream

It’s simple to add flour or cornstarch to your heavy cream recipe. In reality, the most difficult decision will be deciding whether to use flour (or a variant of flour) or cornstarch (or even a variety of starch).

Because most flours and starches have the same impact on heavy cream, you won’t have to worry about selecting one that will influence the overall taste and flavor of the cream.

From here, whisk together the flour (or cornstarch) and cold water until it becomes a combination rather than two distinct components of a recipe.

This will also prevent the flour from clumping when added to the thickened heavy cream, enabling you to maintain a smooth and uniform texture throughout the thickened heavy cream.

After that, add the water and flour (or cornstarch) combination to the heavy cream one teaspoon at a time, completely mixing it in.

You’ll want to keep repeating this until you reach the desired thickness. Once you are done with that, you may want to consider tasting the heavy cream to check and see if there is a raw flour taste to it as there can be with adding flour to anything.

If there is, just boil the heavy cream for a few minutes to remove the flavor; before you know it, you will have the ideal heavy cream to use in your recipe.