Recipe Overview
Why you’ll love it: White billows of rich whipped cream make even an ordinary dessert a special occasion. Elevate your desserts with this homemade whipped cream recipe with only 2 ingredients. The taste of homemade whipped cream is unbeatable (pun intended!).
How long it takes: 5 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: electric mixer, medium mixing bowl
Servings: makes 2 cups
If you’ve been in the habit of buying ready-made whipped cream in a can, or frozen topping which isn’t whipped cream at all, giddy up because this simple two ingredient whipped cream recipe will make you rethink everything you’ve ever thought about the world of desserts. The difference between real whipped cream and the store-bought stuff in a can is enough to know you’ll never go back to the premade stuff again!
Can you imagine pumpkin pie without mounds of fluffy whipped cream? Or a chocolate pudding pie with nothing on top of it? How about strawberry shortcakes without whipped cream? It would be like peanut butter sandwiches without jelly or hot dogs without ketchup and mustard.
Everything is better with homemade whipped cream! (Or at least, desserts are better with homemade whipped cream.)
About Homemade Whipped Cream
- Quantumly better than whipped topping! Maybe you’ve gotten by in the past with tubs of frozen whipped cream or whipped cream from a can. I’m telling you there is absolutely no comparison with the real thing. Once you’ve tried actual REAL whipped cream, you’ll never go back to those mere imitations. Plus those imitations often consist of a bunch of really strange sounding artificial ingredients while the real thing is basically one ingredient: cream.
- Only 2 ingredients. Yes, you heard me right! All you need is whipping cream (found in the dairy section) and powdered sugar. If you’d like to add flavoring (see the ideas below), that will add another ingredient. So simple, pure, and delicious!
- So easy to make! Are you worried that making whipped cream from scratch is difficult? Nope, it’s super duper easy. (Honestly, SO SO easy!) If you have an electric hand mixer and a bowl, you can make this whipped cream recipe in less than 5 minutes. Really! You are only five minutes away from delightfully fluffy clouds of freshly whipped cream. What are you waiting for?!
Ingredient Notes
Heavy Cream: You want to use cream with at least 30% fat (see the note below). Look for cream in the diary section that is labeled “Heavy Cream.” It will whip up more easily than lower fat products and won’t deflate as quickly. The cream should be well-chilled, the colder the better.
Confectioner’s Sugar: Commonly called powdered sugar, this finely ground sugar blends in well, and won’t give your whipped cream a grainy texture. You can make your whipped cream as sweet (or not sweet) as you like it.
Pure Vanilla Extract: While all you really need for delicious whipped cream is cream and sugar, vanilla is a lovely flavor addition. Vanilla bean paste is also a delicious addition and you’ll see flecks of vanilla bean in your final product. Keep reading for more flavor suggestions.
Recipe Tip
Electric hand mixer or stand mixer: You can make whipped cream without the aid of an electric mixer and use a whisk instead but it takes a lot of whisking and your arm will probably get tired!
How To Make Whipped Cream
Chill the bowl and beaters ahead of time. Choose a bowl that is large enough. Keep in mind that the cream will double in size when it’s whipped. It also may spatter at first and a larger bowl helps contain the spatters.
Whip the cream at medium to medium high speed. Add a cup of chilled heavy cream to the chilled bowl, and whip it at medium high speed. It will be kind of bubbly at first and then start to thicken gradually.
Add powdered sugar. When the whipped cream starts to mound and make little hills, gradually add ¼ cup of powdered sugar and continue to beat.
Beat until soft peaks form. What are soft peaks? Turn off your mixer and dip the beaters into your whipped cream. When you lift up the beaters, you should see little stable peaks that hold their shape, with tops that kind of droop over.
How Long To Beat Whipped Cream
Experiment with how long you whip the cream. Shorter whipping time will give you softer whipped cream with soft peaks, longer whipping time will give you firmer whipped cream with stiff peaks. See what you like best. Whipped cream progresses rapidly from soft peaks to stiff peaks to butter, so watch carefully.
Tips For Success
- Use powdered sugar. Regular sugar will work, too, but powdered sugar works a little better. Powdered/confectioners’ sugar actually has a bit of cornstarch in it and the cornstarch will help stabilize your whipped cream.
- Make sure everything is well-chilled. Cold, cold, cold is better when whipping cream. Put the carton of heavy cream in the freezer to chill for a half hour or so (don’t forget it’s in there, you don’t want it to freeze solid!). Place the empty mixing bowl and the beaters in the fridge or freezer for half hour or so, too. For sure, don’t use a warm bowl right out of the dishwasher.
- Prevent spatters. Place the chilled bowl right into your empty sink if you can, to prevent splatters. Really, there will still be splatters but they’ll be in your sink and you can just rinse them off. Set the bowl on a dish cloth in the sink so the bowl doesn’t rattle around.
Ways To Enhance Your Whipped Cream
- Cinnamon whipped cream: Add ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon with the powdered sugar. Alternatively, add a ½ teaspoon of homemade apple pie spice, a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and allspice or pumpkin pie spice.
- Chocolate whipped cream: Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder with the powdered sugar.
- Vanilla bean whipped cream: This adds a bit of visual interest with the brown flecks of vanilla bean. Scrape out the insides of a vanilla bean pod or use vanilla bean paste. Add it to the heavy cream before you whip it.
- Espresso whipped cream: Add 1 teaspoon of instant espresso powder to the cream and stir it in well to dissolve the powder before you whip the cream.
- Citrus flavored whipped cream: Fold in a teaspoon of lemon, lime, orange, tangerine, or grapefruit zest after the cream has been whipped. Don’t use the mixer to fold in the zest because much of the zest will get wrapped around the mixer blades.
- More add ins: Fold in shredded coconut, mini chocolate chips, or whatever you like.
Whipped Cream Basics
Whipping Cream vs Heavy Cream
This can be a little confusing. Products labeled “whipping cream” are actually a bit lighter, 30 to 35% milk fat, compared to heavy cream which has at least 36% milk fat. Heavy cream will actually whip better and hold its shape longer. Seems like “whipping cream” is kind of a misnomer if heavy cream performs better, but hey, who am I to judge!
Can You Rewhip Whipped Cream?
Rewhipping whipped cream that has gone flat or deflated doesn’t really work. Unfortunately, rewhipping cream that’s been overwhipped isn’t going to work either. If your whipped cream looks grainy and separated, it actually has begun the process of turning into butter and you can’t reverse it back to whipped cream.
Ideally, whipped cream is best made right before you serve it. If you need to make it ahead, you can stabilize the whipped cream by adding full fat sour cream, whole milk Greek yogurt, or creme fraiche. Simply add ¼ cup to the whipped cream after soft peaks begin to form, whip well, and your whipped cream will last for a couple of days.
Freezing Leftover Whipped Cream
Line a baking sheet with parchment, and drop plops of the whipped cream onto it. You can make different sizes, i.e., smaller dollops that will fit into a mug of hot chocolate, or larger dollops for desserts. If you want to get fancy, you could use a pastry bag and pipe it onto the baking sheet in pretty shapes.
Place the baking sheet into the freezer and freeze the whipped cream until firm; put the frozen dollops into a freezer bag or container.
For hot beverages, there’s no need to thaw the frozen whipped cream. For desserts, simply place the frozen whipped cream on the dessert and wait 10 minutes or so. It thaws quickly.
Freezing Heavy Cream (before whipping)
If you have a partial carton of heavy cream (unwhipped) that you aren’t going to use right away, you can also freeze that. Freeze the heavy cream right in the container it comes in and take it out of the freezer the night before and put it into the refrigerator. It’s okay if it’s a little frozen yet when you whip it. Heavy cream actually whips better when it’s really cold. Hint: If you want to freeze a full carton, remove a little bit of the heavy cream to allow for expansion.
Dessert Recipes
Whipped Cream Recipe – How to Make Whipped Cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Chill a medium sized bowl (see note) and beaters for at least one hour in refrigerator or freezer.
- Remove bowl and cream from refrigerator. Pour cream into chilled bowl.1 cup heavy cream, chilled
- With hand mixer on medium speed, beat cream for 2 minutes or until peaks begin to form.
- Add vanilla and gradually add powdered sugar; beat until soft peaks form. (Don’t overbeat or your whipped cream will separate and turn into butter.)1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- Yield: Whipping cream will double in size when whipped, so use a large enough bowl. This recipe makes 2 cups of whipped cream.
- Make ahead: Adding ¼ cup of full fat sour cream or whole milk Greek yogurt will help your whipped cream last longer in the refrigerator.
- Double the recipe. Use 2 cups of heavy cream with ½ cup of powdered sugar, and a bigger bowl.
- Flavor variations: You can easily adjust the sweetness of the whipped cream by increasing or decreasing the amount of powdered sugar. To add different flavors to the whipped cream, substitute a different extract for the vanilla; add spices such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice etc.; add cocoa powder; stir in lemon or lime zest; etc. See the post for more ideas.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
Rachel,That recipe for whip cream was absolutely delicious Thank You! Dee
So glad you liked it! Thanks for the review!
What if I don’t have a refrigerator
This probably isn’t the best recipe for you if you don’t have a way of chilling it. Sorry!