Homemade Fresh Cream

- Submitted by Dahlia

(Dairy Cream, Sweet Cream, Whipped Cream, Milk Cream)

Making cream at home is one of the simplest things to do. You just need to collect the cream from the milk on a regular basis. This is so much cheaper than the store bought cream. Of course for convenience you can always buy the ready made brands. However, the taste ans aroma of fresh homemade cream, butter and ghee is incomparable with the store bought ones. It is well worth the effort you take.

Homemade cream is great for makhani gravies and also for desserts. The options are unlimited. Once you have the cream you may proceed to make butter or ghee out of it. For gravies, cream taken from milk with lower fat content (2% or 3.5%) is sufficient. If you plan to make whipped cream, you need milk with full fat.

There is no major work involved. All you have to do is collect the cream that forms on top of the boiled milk and store it properly. Some people collect on a regular basis whenever they boil milk. If properly frozen with no power cuts, the cream lasts for up to 6 months. I had a neighbor who used to collect for six months. Once in 6 months, she used to make a big batch of fresh homemade butter and a bottle of ghee with the collected cream. I recommend collecting for a month and using it before collecting the next batch. That way, you do not have to worry much about power cuts in India and it also takes less efforts.

Let's get to the procedure.

Making Cream At Home

Ingredients

• Full fat milk
• Ice cold water

Method

To collect cream from milk

1. Boil the milk and let it cool.

   

2. Keep the vessel in the refrigerator overnight or for about 5 hours.
3. You will find a thick yellowish layer of cream formed as the top layer of milk.

   

4. Remove this cream with a spoon and keep it in another container.

   

5. Freeze this and continue collecting every day when you boil milk until you have sufficient quantity. You can keep collecting and make butter once a month.

   

6. Once you have collected sufficient quantity, whip it lightly till it get smooth and creamy.

You can use this to make makhani gravies or to flavor many curries.

To make whipped cream

To make whipped cream for cakes and other desserts, you need cream that has higher than 30% fat content. So make sure to use the full fat cows milk or buffalo milk. The second thing you have to keep in mind is that the milk should be fresh and the collected cream should be properly frozen. If it turns sour, the cream will spoil the taste of the dessert.

1. Refrigerate a clean, dry bowl  in which you want to whip the cream. Also refrigerate the whipping blades. This gives the best results.
2. Take the collected bowl and whip it using a hand mixer.
3. The cream will slowly become thicker and soft peaks start forming.
4. Add required powdered sugar at this stage and continue whipping till you get stiff peaks.

If you continue whipping, you will end up with butter and buttermilk. Check out the detailed steps to make Homemade Butter here. You can make fresh Homemade Ghee from this butter.

Indian Gravy Recipes with Cream

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