Chocolate Whipped Cream

Mixing up homemade whipped cream is one of the easiest things you can do to take your baking to the next level. The perfect topping for pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, you definitely want to keep these tips for how to quickly and easily whip cream into submission in your back pocket this holiday season. To top it off, turning simple whipped cream into a spectacular flavored addition to your dessert spread is even simpler.

Today I am sharing how to make chocolate whipped cream, but you can add any flavoring to whipped cream to compliment whatever you are serving! Heck, you can even add salt and savory flavors to serve it over butternut soup. But I just think chocolate and pumpkin belong together like in these amazing cupcakes, so I love the idea of serving chocolate whipped cream on top of pumpkin pie this season. Or on top of a praline pumpkin upside down cake that I’ll be sharing soon!

So why bother taking five minutes to whip up heavy whipping cream? Sure you can just pick up something labelled whipped cream in a can or a plastic tub, but it isn’t real cream (read the ingredients!). And well, for starters the taste of homemade is so much better. Then you can sweeten as you like with whatever sweetener you prefer. You can flavor it however you need to best pair with your dish from simple vanilla to spiked bourbon. And you can feel good about knowing what you’re putting in your body. When you buy anything store bought, you can just never be guaranteed about what ingredients are in them. Hard to read ingredient lists with unknown terminology and scientific names often leave you wondering just what you are eating, doesn’t it? When you use real, fresh cream and whip it up with raw sugar at home, then you can be confident in the ingredients you are serving your family this holiday! That’s good enough for me.

Here are my tips for making the perfect homemade whipped cream.

1. COLD – Place your bowl, beaters and heavy whipping cream in the freezer for a few minutes to chill before beating.
2. Use a LARGE, deep bowl. Whipping cream doubles in volume, so be sure you choose a bowl large enough to accommodate the amount of cream you are whipping without it splattering everywhere.
3. Start slowly to avoid splattering your kitchen and yourself with heavy cream!
4. Then it’s just FAST FAST FAST as the wrist allows (name that movie!). You have to whip the old fashioned way just once – solid arm strength and a whisk, but when you want to enjoy your dessert before midnight, I recommend medium high to high speed using an electric mixer – hand mixer will do fine. For the best texture, you’ll want to whip the cream until fluffy as quickly as you can. Too long and it starts to heat up the cream and break down the proteins.
5. Do not overbeat! You want soft peaks. As the whipping cream begins to foam up with bubbles, I then add my sugar and flavorings so that I don’t have to beat it any additional time to mix in those ingredients AFTER it gets to the perfect consistency.
6. Soft peaks are perfect for serving atop pie! You want to beat beat beat on as high of a speed as possible until you see soft smooth peaks. Anything more and it gets too stiff and begins turning into butter.
7. Use granulated sugar, NOT powdered sugar. You would think it would leave a granular texture, but it doesn’t. Instead the granulated sugar helps to give body to the cream and stabilize it.
8. Use good, quality vanilla or other flavorings. In something as simple as whipped cream, you can taste the difference.
9. Whipped cream is best served the same day, but it can be made a few hours in advance and stored in an airtight container in the fridge. Before serving, you may need to stir gently with a spoon or scraper to soft peaks again.
10. Bonus: frozen whipped cream is amazing on top of a freezer pie like my Frozen key lime pie.

Enjoy! And again, use your creative license to come up with whatever wacky flavored whipped cream you can dream up and then tell me what was your favorite so I can try it too!