Whipped cream

Whipped cream is cream that is whipped by a whisk or mixer until it is light and fluffy. Whipped cream is often sweetened and sometimes flavored with vanilla, and is often called Chantilly cream or crème Chantilly (pronounced: [kʁɛm ʃɑ̃tiji]).

Food chemistry

Cream containing 30% or more butterfat can be mixed with air, and the resulting colloid is roughly double the volume of the original cream as air bubbles are captured into a network of fat droplets. If, however, the whipping is continued, the fat droplets will stick together destroying the colloid and forming butter. Lower-fat cream (or milk) does not whip well, while higher-fat cream produces a more stable foam.

Methods of whipping

Cream is usually whipped with a whisk, an electric or hand mixer, or a food processor.

Whipped cream is often flavored with sugar, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, orange, and so on. Many 19th-century recipes recommend adding gum tragacanth to stabilize whipped cream; a few include whipped egg whites. Various other substances, including gelatin and diphosphate (E450), are used in commercial stabilizers.