John Myers
Many swear by cooking cream. But what is cooking cream anyway? What is the difference to whipped cream?
A look at the 6 differences shows how they differ.
The light alternative
Cooking cream – not only does it taste like cream, but it can also be used as such when cooking. It even has half as much fat as whipped cream. That’s why it’s also called the “light alternative” to whipped cream. Cooking cream is primarily used to refine the taste and is often used in soups, sauces, and dips. The composition is simple: it only contains vegetable fats and milk. These vegetable fats include all unsaturated fatty acids, such as:
- rapeseed oil
- linseed oil
- algae oil
- olive oil
- sunflower oil
Because all these oils contain a high proportion of omega-3 fatty acids or are rich in oleic acid. Whipped cream, on the other hand, has a high proportion of saturated fatty acids, which consist of animal products and are rather unhealthy for your body. It is therefore the lighter alternative to whipped cream, cream, or crème fraîche, as the fat content is significantly lower. In the meantime, it can even be found in different fat content variants.
Note: The Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Germans discovered how delicious milk tastes more than 5000 years ago. With the emergence of the first diets, the cream substitute hype, such as cooking cream, also came up.
Differences: cooking cream – whipped cream
But can you simply replace whipped cream with cooking cream? Because in addition to the almost identical taste, there are a few differences.
Differences in cooking cream – whipped cream
- Consistency liquid to creamy – (cannot be beaten stiff) viscous to firm – (can be beaten stiff)
- Taste – neutral to sweet – sweet
- Fat content on 100 grams – 18g – 30g
- Shelf life approx. – 1-week max. – 1 week
- Composition – Vegetable fats and milk – Milk and sugar
- use – eg. for soups, sauces, and dips – e.g. for cake or ice cream
Creamy affair
In order to celebrate the wide range of possible uses, we have two simple recipes for you. Use them, for example, to refine a creamy beetroot soup with cream. Beetroot is not only healthy, it tastes super spicy and can be combined wonderfully with cooking cream. Another great idea is our recipe for Light Creamy Wild Garlic Sauce. Tastes heavenly and goes great with pasta and shrimp. These were just two suggestions, there are many other creamy ways you can use cooking cream.
