Stabilized Whipped Cream - Holds Shape For 24 Hours

Who doesn’t love baking?

The smell of the ingredients, tasting the mix when you’re finished. The only real stressors are the factors we cannot control; namely the weather, and time.

We’ve all seen on The Great British Bake Off, when the (surprising) heat of the British summer turns, even the best constructed baked goods into crumbling, runny messes, and we can all agree it’s nothing less than heartbreaking!

This can be particularly dicey with creamy bakes, especially the ones including a lot of whipped cream.

Other options can be used of course, but sometimes whipped cream is the only way to go, so it’s good to have an ace in the hole, just in case duty calls.

Despite being delicious, whipped cream doesn’t have a very long shelf life, especially on hot days, when you can quickly end up with a puddle of runny liquid where once stood a glorious whip.

The answer? Stabilized whipped cream.

Ranging from gelatin, cornstarch, icing sugar, milk powder, and pudding mix, there are several simple techniques to prolong the life of your cream, and once you learn them you’ll wonder why you ever tried anything else!

The Gelatin Method

When tricks like cooling, or using a high fat whipped cream don’t work, like on those aforementioned hot days, one of the best methods for stabilizing is through incorporating gelatin into your cream.

This can be done by softening the gelatin in ¼ cup of cold water, before warming it until the gelatin melts.

Once this is done, begin to whip your cream as normal, continuing until the cream has sufficiently thickened, before adding the gelatin to the mixture whilst mixing at high speed.

Once this has been combined, the cream will maintain its shape for 24 hours, making it the perfect choice for hot days, as well as for complex cake decorating where whipped cream is the primary component - purely from the point of view of structural ease.

This is perfect for ensuring that any decorations last long enough - particularly if you have a cake for a customer to collect that day.

You don’t want to be decorating it last minute, and you wouldn’t want to take a chance on fresh cream, so with this method you get to plan ahead, finish early, and have time for the cake to chill before collection.

Corn Starch

Of course, the one thing that puts off some people, is that gelatin is an animal product, and therefore not suitable for vegetarians.

In this instance, another commonly used method is mixing the cream with cornstarch, although this should be done little by little to avoid denseness of the cream or tainting the flavor of the mixture.

A ¼ of a teaspoon is recommended to begin with, increasing the ratio in increments as you whip the cream.

Similar vegetarian options can include arrowroot or tapioca starch, but cornstarch is certainly the most common.

Derived from corn grain, and known for its sticky composition, cornstarch can be a simple and easy substitute for gelatin and other more complex methods.

Similarly, cornstarch can be found in milk powder, instant vanilla, as well as pudding mix (either cornstarch or arrowroot), meaning that there are any number of methods you can use to stabilize your whipped cream, depending on the taste you are going for, or the contents of your pantry.

Powdered (Icing) Sugar

Often during the baking process, whipped cream needs to be sweetened anyway, so as a two birds with one stone technique, icing sugar can be used as a perfect bonding agent to stabilize your whipped cream.

Also, whereas granulated sugar is heavier, risking the collapse of the peaks of whipped cream, the starchy, light composition of icing sugar means not only does it allow the cream to remain stabilized for longer, but it also avoids compromising the attractiveness of the overall design.

Gluten-Free Options

For gluten-free bakers, other options such as xanthan gum, and guar gum are available.

Gluten is a necessary bonding agent in baking, so when that can’t be part of the equation, other substances have to be used to provide the same service.

Xanthan gum is made from combining fermented corn sugar with a microbial called xanthomonas campestris.

Once this fermentation process is complete, the residue is collected, crushed into a powder (the form in which it is sold), and then combined with liquid to create a sticky gel, which is then used as a bonding agent.

Xanthan gum is sometimes present in gluten–free flour, so it is best to check before you add it to your mixture (or indeed whipped cream), as you don’t want an overly starchy composition.

Guar gum on the other hand is derived from a legume producing plant, often referred to as an Indian Tree.

Used as a prolonger of shelf life in baked goods, and as an ingredient to pad out dough to make it go further.

Once removed from the tree, the husks are opened, the beans are removed, and these are ground into a powder ready for sale, where it can be used to create significantly more starchiness than standard cornstarch, making it the more potent and effective stabilizer.

Of course, much less is needed, and it is recommended that the same measures are taken as before, using a ¼ teaspoon to begin with, and gently increasing the amount as the whipping process continues.

Conclusion

And there we have it, all the methods you might need to stabilize whipped cream, promoting the shelf life and appearance of any cream based bake or cake.

Perfect for elaborate cream decorations that need to maintain their shape, or for keeping the attractive appearance during hot weather, stabilization is the best way to give yourself some breathing room during the decoration process, especially useful for professional bakers who have expectant customers!