[Mike Nolan]

I've tried a few GBBO recipes, with reasonable results, though many English recipes use caster sugar, which is not generally available in the USA, though I think superfine baker's sugar comes pretty close. In most recipes, I don't think it makes much difference. There are differences in flour as well, North American flours are generally much stronger (higher protein/gluten content).

The continued success of Hell's Kitchen amazes me as well. I can't say I've learned much about cooking from it, but I wonder about the skill levels of the cooks in the restaurants I go to more than I used to.

[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.

[Mike Nolan]

Given that the shows from GBBO being shown on PBS now are from several seasons ago, it might take a while for Mary Berry's new show to make it to USA markets, if it does at all. (Gordon Ramsay's British series didn't do so well on USA TV, which is why Hell's Kitchen is done in Los Angeles.)

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.)

[Mike Nolan]

There's something messed up about the product label in the link you provided. It says 'serving size 1 cup 240 ml' and says there are 16 servings per container. I really doubt that there are 16 CUPS in the package, that'd be a gallon container! Does the nutrition label on the package you bought say the same thing?

I can't compute the percentage of butterfat from the nutrition label because mL is a volume measurement, not a weight measurement, but if it is 5 grams of fat per tablespoon, the roundoff error (5 grams means somewhere between 4.50 and 5.49 grams per tablespoon) is so large that the calculation would probably be meaningless anyway. (That's one of the reasons I truly hate the mandated 'nutrition information' labels!)

If it says it is whipping cream, it has to be at least 30% butterfat to whip, so it's probably in the 35-39% range. I also found a contact page for Land O'Lakes, I'll let everyone know if I get a response to my inquiry. (In the interests of full disclosure I identified myself as a food blogger and mentioned that I intended to publish their response.)

Here's what another writer came up with: butterfat content of cream I doubt it is exactly 42% butterfat as computed on that site, but that's within the roundoff error range.

[Mike Nolan]

Butterfat is the fat in the milk, so the nutrition label should have that information.

However, I generally won't buy a brand of cream if the carton doesn't explicitly list the buttefat content without having to search for it. That's just bad marketing on the part of the dairy.

[Mike Nolan]

I've only had it on scones and similar products, it's so expensive we don't buy it often.

My wife's scones recipe is sweeter than most, almost like a shortbread, except that it rises a lot. (Sorry, I can't post the recipe, she got it from a caterer years ago on the condition that she not give it to anyone else.)

[Mike Nolan]

I wonder if what you saw was Devonshire clotted cream?

[Mike Nolan]

The Wikipedia article on whipped cream says it takes 35% butterfat for cream to be whippable, but Harold McGee says 30%. The higher the butterfat content, the easier it will whip. Heavy cream is one of those things where I read the label carefully in the store, not all brands have the same butterfat content.

Having the cream and utensils very cold helps, some sources suggest putting the mixing bowl in the freezer for a half hour.

McGee also notes that 'natural' cream, that which rises to the top of whole milk, is only about 20% butterfat, the invention of centrifugal separators made it much easier for dairies to produce heavy cream.

[Mike Nolan]

I often use a layer of chopped spinach and ricotta cheese in a stuffed pizza or a lasagna. I haven't made either one in a while, though, mostly because either recipe makes a LOT of high-carb food.

[Mike Nolan]

Most stores in the USA seem to carry 3 types of cream these days:

Half and Half - usually 12-18% butterfat.

Table Cream - Can range from 20-30% butterfat. I've got a lot of candy recipes that call for 22% cream.

Heavy Cream - Generally 30% or more butterfat, around here it's usually 38%

As I recall, it takes about 30% butterfat in order to make whipped cream, so table cream generally won't whip into whipped cream. (McGee confirms the 30% figure.)

Corrected: According to McGee it takes about 25% butterfat in order for it to be stable, ie, adding cream to a hot sauce or soup without it curdling, so most brands of half and half are likely to break if used in a sauce.

In England you can sometimes buy double cream, which is somewhere around 55-60% butterfat. I've never seen it in the USA, not even through restaurant suppliers.

When I was growing up, our milk wasn't always homogenized, so occasionally there'd be a layer of cream at the top. That was pretty rich cream.

In most parts of the country, you can't buy raw milk in stores, though I've been told that in Nebraska if you go straight to the farm they can sell it to you, though the two dairy farms I've asked about it won't do it. I can get raw goats milk from a local goat farmer/cheesemaker that way, but have never done it.

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