It is not enough to simply say that you know how to make whipped cream – to earn respect you really need to show that you fully understand the process.

Like anything culinary it is firmly based upon science but with a smattering or art – because when you are dealing with natural ingredients and products then the variance can be great enough to add the ‘random-factor’ that breaks even the most carefully thought out formulae.

It all starts with a field of grass – you were perhaps thinking that the starting point was actually your local Tesco Express – but no, no, no – believe or not cream is in fact made from grass! In fact the creamier the colour of diary products, the higher the grass content! A perfect snow-white milk would only come from a dairy herd that lives indoors and is fed mainly upon high-protein animal feed or cow biscuits, the slightly yellow colour of hi-quality cream is in fact all due to proteins that only occur in natural green grass!

If you ever get the chance to buy unpasteurized cream direct from the farm then leap upon the opportunity and grab it with both hands and both legs – the naturally coagulated stuff is in a different field to the drippy stuff that you get from supermarkets. Some shops and dairies also sell cream that has added thickeners which is a big no-no.

Assuming you can’t get the unpasteurized stuff – straight from the udder then you will have a choice of thickness – single, whipping, double, thick-double . These are actually measures of fat content and vary between areas and countries a good guide can be found here despite the differences they can all be persuaded to thicken with a little bit of agitation and stirring, whipping or with the use a nitrous oxide powered whipped cream dispenser.

The basic process of whipping cream is persuading the fat globules contained in the cream to stick together making little blocks of  larger substance. These then have the ability to trap air in pockets – making the lovely, fluffy whipped cream. You might be interested to know that making butter from cream is exactly the same process – but taken to an extreme – the fat globules become so large as to completely bind together and becoming totally immiscible with the aqueous butter-milk.  It then rises to the surface and can be skimmed off, rinsed and spread upon toast! You may want to experiment with this – it takes a bit of time but will eventually make a usable product. If you do make it then be sure to rinse it thoroughly because although the butter has a reasonable longevity buttermilk is prone to spoiling every bit as quickly as milk – so rancid butter is often rancid butter milk – the fat itself will be fine. Indeed if the butter is clarified then it has a more or less indefinite lifespan because the process of clarification involves the complete removal of the buttermilk by melting the butter in how water – the fat will float and any other proteins will either dissolve in the water or sink to the bottom – either of which will ensure that the butter fast is free from impurities that could cause spoilage.

Using a cream charger on the other hand makes what is superficially the same product the cream is in fact different. A cream charger works by injecting a gas (Nitrous Oxide) into the cream at a high pressure. The gas will will dissolve because of the pressure. This much the same as the process by which carbonated drinks are made: with a fizzy drink then a gas (Carbon Dioxide) is dissolved under pressure into the liquid – it remains dissolved as long as both the liquid and gas are under pressure – only when the pressure is released will the bubbles form. Temperature is also a factor in this – more gas will dissolve at lower temperatures.

The significant difference with whipped cream is that a different gas is used – Nitrous Oxide instead of Carbon Dioxide.  Nitrous oxide dissolved under pressure into the fat molecules in the cream – and when the pressure is released then it doesn’t just fizz-up and disappear in the way that it would in Coca-Cola, it causes the fat molecules to bind together in much the same way that they do when agitated or whipped – so the thickened, more viscous cream has the ability to hold onto the gas and keep it inside air-sacks thus inflating the cream.

The cream is not stiffened to the same extent as it is with normal whipping so the peaks will not last as long as they would with regular aerated dairy products.