Half and Half, Whipping Cream, and Heavy Whipping Cream

[Mike Nolan]

The small town I grew up in had 2 grocery stores plus a butcher shop when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, today it has no grocery stores, though the one remaining gas station is also a convenience store so it carries a few groceries. (There were four or five gas stations when I was growing up.)

[BakerAunt]

Here is what the nutrition label says:

Serving size: 1 Tbsp
Servings per container: 22

I already see a problem, since it is a pint, which should be 2 cups, and there are 16 Tbs. in a cup.

Calories: 50
Calories from Fat: 50
Total Fat: 8%
Saturated Fat 3.5 g: 17% (percentages are % Daily Value)
Trans Fat: 0%

Cholesterol: 20 mg 7%
Sodium 5 mg 0%
Total Carbohydrate: 1 g 0%
Dietary Fiber 0g 0%
Sugars 0%
Protein 0 g

Vitanin A 4%
Calcium 0%
Vitamin C 0%
Iron 0%

Yes--completely unhelpful.

When people can drive to Walmart, small town grocery stores close. There were once three grocery stores here, according to my husband, and there were two in the 1950s. There are two gas stations still going strong (both also convenience stores, and one has a Subway), probably because of the summer people and the private high school, with mostly boarding students, on the edge of town. I am grateful that an Ace Hardware opened after the independent one closed when the elderly owner retired, and no one wanted to buy the business. There is a CVS. A handful of restaurants, a seasonal Root Beer stand (food not as good as it once was), an excellent independent coffee shop, an ice cream shop, and a Dollar store, and two independent clothing/other stuff stores, and two "shabby chic"/antique places.

We were in Champaign-Urbana last weekend, so I stocked up on our favorite German honey at T.J. Maxx, as well as imported orange marmalade and my favorite German pickles at Tuesday Morning.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[aaronatthedoublef]

http://www.finecooking.com/article/heavy-cream-vs-whipping-cream is the link I originally intended to post. It's interesting except for the one snarky comment at the end.

In our town rents and taxes are so high the only stores that can survive seem to be national chains, except for restaurants. We seem to have and endless number of them and very few go out of business. We now have three new ice cream shops in town that charge a minimum of $6.50 a pop.

Two are Thai ice cream places (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybb57frsdKk) and one makes ice cream to-order using liquid nitrogen.

I've started to refer to our town as Connecticut's food court. People have asked where they can buy a t-shirt so I may have a new, second line of business!

[Mike Nolan]

Interesting and well-written post, despite the snarky response from a reader.

I went back and re-read McGee and he also states that it takes 25% butterfat to produce a stable sauce without the risk of it breaking, so I've revised my earlier post. If you're buying table cream for this, check the label carefully for butterfat content. (Don't trust the nutrition label!) If it says 'whipping cream', it needs to be at least 30% butterfat to whip, so you should be OK.

A further note, if you're making a cream-and-wine sauce, it is advisable to reduce the wine before adding the cream, that lowers the risk that the lowered pH and alcohol in the wine cause the sauce to break (the cream to curdle) and it also makes sure the sauce doesn't taste like 'raw' wine.

One of my favorite dishes is Veal Zurich, which is made with a white wine and cream sauce. More than once my wife has asked, usually after plugging the recipe into a menu analysis program, "Can't you make it with milk?" I tell her no.

[Mike Nolan]

I'll be interested to see if they explain how a pint of whipping cream contains 22 tablespoons. Was that a Land O'Lakes product?

I did get what appears to be the standard automated 'you will receive a response in 1-2 days' to my request for information from Land O'Lakes.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

A few years ago Lincoln must have had a half-dozen or more new frozen yogurt/custard shops open up, several of them have already closed. Now everyone's opening coffee shacks.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--The brand is Dean's Country Fresh Dairy Pure. The other brand was one I'd not heard of before. All numbers on the side were the same--except I will check next time I'm at the local store to see if its servings per container is similarly incorrect. I wrote to Dean's, but have not heard back yet.

Thanks, Aaron for posting the link.

I might check out the dairy items at Kroger next time I'm in the larger neighboring town. There is also an Aldi's there, which did not impress me a couple of years ago, but I'll check it out again, as they are expanding, and friends here rave about them. I have to say that the bread from Aldi's that our friends served last night was actually good--a white bread with a crisp crust and the kinds of holes about which home bakers dream.

On another dairy note: I did not buy buttermilk at Walmart last week because it only had one brand, and the carton said either lowfat or reduced fat buttermilk. As buttermilk is supposed to be lowfat anyway, I did not trust it. In that case, I bought the Dean's buttermilk at the store in my town.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

Buttermilk is historically what's left after the butter has been made from cream, but buttermilk hasn't been made like that in years, probably decades. It's a 'cultured' product made from milk, so low-fat buttermilk starts with low-fat milk. So is sour cream, though low-fat sour cream always sounds like a contrast in terms to me!

I've got a book on cooking with buttermilk that starts out by having you make European style butter from cream and some active culture product (such as tefir, though cultured buttermilk or sour cream might work as well) and what's left over is the buttermilk you use in the recipes. Along the way, you wind up making your own creme fraiche.

The book, in case anyone is interested, is the Animal Farm Buttermilk Cookbook, by Diane St. Clair.

[BakerAunt]

Today, I checked out containers of heavy whipping cream at Walmart and Kroger. One, I think it was Prairie, mentioned 35% milkfat, nary a mention of butterfat. None of the others, including the Kroger brand or Land of Lakes mentioned butterfat.

[Mike Nolan]

Milkfat and butterfat are the same thing, there is only one fat in milk.

I'll have to check the cream packages in the Lincoln stores the next time I go shopping. As I recall, one brand showed the milk/butterfat content and another did not.

[BakerAunt]

Dean's sent me an email asking me to call to discuss my question, so I will do so tomorrow. In the meantime, I bought another small carton of heavy whipping cream at the local grocery. This one is C.F. Burger Creamery. Near the top of the carton it states: Min. 36% milkfat.

I'll report back tomorrow on what I learn from Dean's.

[BakerAunt]

I just got off the phone with a consumer representative from Dean's. He said that without the product code, he could not tell me, since there were two different batches, but that it would be either 36% and 40%. He said that if I ever wanted to call when I buy it again, they can tell me if I give them the product code.

It sounds like perhaps it varies somewhat, and perhaps that is why they do not list it? Given the other brand that I mentioned above, perhaps 36% is the minimum for heavy whipping cream?

I'll be interested in what Mike learns from Land of Lakes. This discussion about heavy cream has been eye-opening for me.

[Mike Nolan]

So far all I've gotten is the 'You'll hear from us in a few days' message, I'll give them a few more days to respond then probably give them a call.

They have fixed the web link you had posted, it now says serving size is 1 tablespoon and there are 64 servings in the package.

[Italiancook]

I have always bought cream by brand name, without reading the box. Now, I'm going to analyze the words on the carton. I've enjoyed this discussion.

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