Homemade Whipped Cream

Name: Homemade Whipped Cream
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 1 cup heavy cream (or heavy whipping cream); ½ cup powdered sugar; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

by Michelle
published April 9, 2019

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4.5 (24 ratings)

Make homemade whipped cream with just 3 ingredients and in only 5 minutes! Once you taste fresh sweetened whipped cream, you’ll never want to grab a tub or can from the grocery store again. It’s the perfect accompaniment to fruit, to top your favorite cakes or pies, and add as layers in pretty trifles.

Fresh whipped cream might seem like second nature to most people, but when I first started making it myself years ago, I was admittedly intimidated. While there’s nothing better than a cream-based pie piled high with clouds of fresh whipped cream, there is certainly a sweet spot when it comes to getting it whipped up perfectly. If you stop too soon, you’ll end up with watery whipped cream, and if you whip it for too long, you’ll end up with butter.

Once I landed on the perfect combination of ingredients and technique, I’ve never looked back. This may seem basic to many, but I’m sure there are others out there like me who may be intimidated by it or who can never get it quite right.

Let’s do this!!

Ingredients for Fresh Whipped Cream

Technically, you only need one – heavy cream! But if you want something at least a little bit sweet (you do, trust me!), then you need three total ingredients:

Heavy cream (or heavy whipping cream)
Sugar (powdered sugar or granulated sugar)
Vanilla extract

You may have seen both heavy cream and heavy whipping cream at your grocery store and wondered if they are the same thing, or if they can be used interchangeably. Let’s discuss…

The Difference Between Heavy Cream and Whipping Cream

This all comes down to fat content. Heavy cream has a slightly higher fat content than whipping cream; they will both turn into delicious bowls of fresh whipped cream, but heavy cream will hold its shape for a longer period of time, while the whipping cream will give you a lighter, softer texture. I always use (and recommend!) heavy cream.

How to Make Homemade Whipped Cream

This comes together easily and quickly! Here’s how we do it…

Place the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a mixing bowl (you can use a stand mixer with a whisk attachment or use a hand mixer).
Beat at medium until frothy and beginning to thicken, then increase to medium-high speed and beat until you start to see trails left by the beaters.
Stop and scrape the bowl. I find that sometimes the cream along the sides and bottom of the bowl don’t get whipped up very well, so once we’re close to finished, I like to scrape the bowl so the straggling cream gets whipped in well too!
Beat until stiff peaks form – I like my whipped cream nice and thick, but you don’t want it to become curdled. It’s important to watch closely at the end so you don’t overmix it (if you’re new to making whipped cream, I find that a hand mixer allows for more control and lessens the chance of overbeating it). If you take the beater out of the cream, it should hold its shape and not droop off of the beater.

Recipes that Use Fresh Whipped Cream

Aside from topping fresh fruit or waffles, you can use it for all of these delicious desserts:

Whipped cream definitely deserves its own little corner of the Internet, and whether you choose to top a pie, dollop it on a bowl of fruit, or pipe some rosettes on a cake, this recipe will serve you infinitely well.

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