Whipped cream is one of those ingredients that I will make from scratch every single time. Once you have it homemade, you will never buy it from the store again. The whipped cream comes together so quickly that the benefits of making it from scratch vastly outweigh the time it takes to make it.

Let’s dive into the process a little bit. The first tip I would give is to make sure the heavy whipping cream is cold. This will help make sure the whipped cream holds its shape and whips up easily. Next, you have a choice between using powdered sugar or regular sugar, but powdered sugar has been my favorite lately. It adds a nice stability to the whipped cream, and is the better option if you are using whipped cream between cake layers or if you want to pipe the whipped cream into a specific shape. Lastly, use either a hand mixer or a stand mixer to mix the whipped cream. No one is going to hand out a trophy for doing it by hand, and your arms will thank me, I promise.

In the instructions below, I mention that you should mix the ingredients to your desired consistency, and that is because whipped cream can take many forms. 

Whipping the cream until you can see whisk streaks in the cream but there is no peak when you turn the whisk upright and the cream doesn’t stick to the whisk will get you the first stage of whipped cream. This might be ideal if you are looking to drizzle the whipped cream over a dish. For example, sometimes I skip the frosting on my cinnamon rolls and drizzle whipped cream over it instead. 

The next stage is soft peak whipped cream, or French Chantilly Cream. This is when the peak of the whipped cream will fold over when you turn the whisk upright, but it still has some stability. 

The last usable stage of whipped cream is stiff peak whipped cream. In this stage, when you turn the whisk upright the peak of the whipped cream will not move and shouldn’t fold over. Stiff peak whipped cream is the most stable style of whipped cream and is great for piping or making mousse. 

The final stage is overwhipped whipped cream. You want to avoid overwhipping your whipped cream because then we start the process of making butter. It is very important to watch the mixing of the whipped cream with a close eye, because it can go from perfectly stable whipped cream to overwhipped cream in a matter of seconds.

I love using this whipped cream recipe to top pies, put on French toast, have with fresh strawberries or use as an ice cream sundae condiment. Honestly, the possibilities are endless!

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