The Biggest Mistake You're Making With Homemade Whipped Cream

Making whipped cream seems pretty easy, almost fool-proof, right? Wrong. This creamy topping is fraught with so many opportunities to make a mistake. The blog Chef Works points out this favorite dessert garnish that we love to dollop on top of everything from ice cream sundaes to pie to hot chocolate is easy to mess up. The culinary obstacle course of perils making whipped cream creates for a novice chef can make or break the finished product (via Chef Works). Whether it's adding sugar at the wrong time in the whipping process — or worse: adding the wrong type of sugar to your whipped cream — or making your whipped cream too soon before you are ready to use it, or using the wrong type of cream to make your whipped cream, there are clearly plenty of opportunities to trip you up.

But whipped cream is fairly simple. At its most basic, it only requires heavy cream and a beater or mixer of sorts. Everything else you add to sweeten or add to the flavor is really optional. Yes, sugar definitely makes it taste better, but even Today has touted how yummy a sugar-free version of this indulgence can be. With that said, there's an even bigger mistake many of us make when we whip up our homemade whipped cream, whether it be sugar-laden or sugar-free.

According to Chef Works the biggest mistake we make when we go to whip up our whipped cream for our trifles and other favorite desserts is not starting with cold cream or a chilled bowl. In fact, Sally's Baking Addiction says the colder the cream the better and recommends that if you want to whip it — and whip it good — you should place your bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes or in the freezer for 15 minutes. This will help you achieve the fluffy, almost weightless pillow-like peaks we so love in our whipped cream.

But it is also important to start with the right cream, too. Per BC Dairy Association, the likes of half and half and table cream won't cut it when you are making this topping. You must use whipping cream or heavy cream in order to create whipped cream perfection. Why these? Because at the very least your cream needs to have 33 percent milk fat to make a credible whipped cream. Heavy cream has a minimum of 36 percent milk fat which, perhaps, makes it the best option when you are making this topping.