How to Make Perfect Whipped Cream

Let's start by talking about ingredients:
35% fat liquid cream
Powdered sugar
Optional: flavor of your choice
The liquid cream must be refrigerated and really cold at the time of whipping; if you are reading this article in the middle of summer in a kitchen at 32°C, feel free to place it in the freezer for a few minutes before whipping, accompanied if possible by the whisk and the container that will be used to whip it. I recommend using 35% fat cream for the best possible result, a 30% cream will not hold as well, will not become as firm, and the whipped cream will not last as long once whipped. You can find it in some stores in 1L cartons (Grand Frais, U stores) or sometimes in small bottles in the fresh section of some supermarkets. If you can't find 35% cream, you can add 10% of the cream's weight in mascarpone for better hold.
Powdered sugar will blend better than granulated sugar in the whipped cream; as for quantities, I generally count 10% of the cream's weight in sugar, so 10g of sugar for 100g of cream, 20g of sugar for 200g of cream, etc. You can adjust the quantities according to your preference for very sweet whipped cream or not.
Flavors: vanilla extract, vanilla beans, coffee extract, chocolate chips, nut pastes (hazelnut or pistachio for example), orange blossom, bitter almond... there are many possibilities to flavor a whipped cream, but it's already very good plain 😊

Let's move on to the recipe:
Whip the cold cream at low speed until it begins to foam.

Then add the sugar and the flavoring of your choice if you use any, and whip again at low speed until you get the desired texture.

I like whipped cream quite firm, so I whip it long enough, but be careful not to overwhip (overwhipping means that the fat separates from the water) because in that case, it's impossible to get whipped cream, you'll just have to keep whipping to get butter. Of course, when I say I like whipped cream quite firm, I'm talking about whipped cream to be eaten as is. For piping onto a cake/tart, it's better to keep a slightly softer texture, and even softer if the whipped cream is to be mixed with a pastry cream to make a diplomat cream, or with chocolate to make a mousse, for example. In that case, too firm whipped cream will be more difficult to mix with the other preparation, and so it would need more mixing and "crushing" of the air bubbles contained in the whipped cream to get a homogeneous preparation, which would be counterproductive.

Last detail, as you see in the photos, I've used a hand whisk to whip my cream; you can also use a stand mixer of course, or for the more ambitious among you, whip it by hand with a whisk, although this way the process might be longer 😉

And there you have it, you know everything to enjoy homemade whipped cream!