Homemade Whipped Cream – Effortlessly Transform Food From Simple to Spectacular!

Have I ever told you that I have a weakness for cream?  Cream sauces, AH!  To die for.  Of course, I’m an equal opportunity cream eater, so I also love whipped cream on the tops of pies, cookies, brownies, ice cream, or anything else that will support its weight (which is just about anything).  For years, whenever I wanted whipped cream on any dish, I had to choose between aerosol whipped cream, which tastes good, but goes flat almost instantly and Cool Whip, which holds its shape just fine, but doesn’t taste as good.  Yeah, it’s a first world problem, so it’s not something I spent a lot of time stressing over.

 

However, a few years ago, I needed whipped cream for something and didn’t feel like running to the store.  (Yes, I know, another first world problem.)  I had some heavy whipping cream in my fridge and decided to try and make my own.  Do you know what I discovered?  Making homemade whipped cream is super easy!  Not only does it taste better than frozen whipped topping and hold its shape better than canned whipped cream, it makes everything look like I spent HOURS making it.  Not that I want to portray myself as someone who slaves for hours in the kitchen, but…

 

I’m going to let you in on my little secret.  You, too, can look like a cooking expert with only a 5 minute time investment.  Remember that rice krispie treat commercial with the mom sitting in the kitchen eating her freshly made rice krispie treats, reading a book, and telling her family the rice krispie treats were almost done?  This is even easier than rice krispie treats (or my favorite, chex crispy treats,recipe here).

 

Homemade Whipped Cream

 

Heavy Whipping Cream

Sugar – 1 tablespoon for each cup of whipping cream, use more or less to taste

 

Mix sugar and whipping cream together.  Beat until stiff peaks form which do not go away.  Serve.  When I am topping a particularly sweet dessert (like my son’s favorite cookie pie, recipe here), I put in less sugar.  I put in a rounded tablespoon for 1 1/2 cups of cream.)

 

That’s it.  Really!  Here’s my photo step-by-step so you can make this lovely whipped cream at home.

 

Here are my ingredients. Make sure your whipping cream is cold and that your bowl is not hot fresh from the dishwasher. Mine was, so I rinsed it in cool water, dried it, and stuck it in the freezer for a couple of minutes to bring it to room temperature.

 

Add sugar to your whipping cream (1 tablespoon of sugar for each cup of whipping cream). I was making this whipped cream for my son’s birthday cookie pie (recipe here), and it is SUPER sweet, so I added less sugar (1 rounded tablespoon for 1 1/2 cups of cream).

 

Mix the sugar and cream together. I use a hand mixer, because it’s so much easier. My Kitchenaid stand mixer is even faster. I’ve made it by hand, too, with a whisk. It takes about 10 minutes, but it’s still worth it!

 

Turn your mixer on high or, when beating by hand, beat quickly with your whisk. The mixture will begin to thicken very quickly.  This is about 20 seconds into mixing.

 

After about a minute, my cream thickened up quite a bit more.

 

After another minute or so, the whipped cream was getting really thick. You can tell it’s ready when you lift the beaters or whisk out of the cream and the “peaks” hold their shape.

 

It’s ready to use! You can store this in the refrigerator to use later as well.

 

I used it to top my son’s Delicious Birthday Cookie Pie (recipe here)!

 

 

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Practical, Real Person, Grocery Store Shopping Prepping

This is one of my earliest posts and one of my favorites. It includes a “build your food storage for $5/wk” guide. Hope you enjoy it!

My Foray Into Food Storage

I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to search for basic preparedness information on the Internet only to find myself visiting Doomsday Prepper websites.  While there is a ton of good info, and I love my doomsday prepper friends, that’s not me.  I am a pretty positive person and think that things usually work out just fine.   Yet, when I read too many Doomsday sites, I start worrying.  A little bit of worry can spur me on and get me going with things I know I should be doing.  A lot of worrying turns into paranoia for me. 

Paranoia + Laurie = Bad Idea!

Paranoia + Laurie = Bad Idea!

I’m sure that I’m not alone in feeling this way. Maybe you’ve felt that way too, or you’ve avoided the traditional “prepping” website because you just don’t want to know or hear about everything that could go…

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Super Easy, No Knead Artisan Bread – Honest! No Mixer Required!

This week, one of my readers asked me if I had any easy, no-knead Artisan bread recipes.  I’d been sitting on a couple, but I had not made any of them yet.  With her encouragement, I decided to jump right into the world of artisan bread making and go for it.

The recipe I selected is found here.  I adapted it just a little, so please visit Making Things Is Awesome‘s website to see the original recipe.  One thing I love about this dough is the tiny amount of yeast used in the recipe.  Because the dough is allowed to rise for such a long time (12-18 hours), you only need 1/2 teaspoon of yeast.  Yeast can be a bit pricy (depending on where you buy it), so being able to use less saves me money!  Saving Money + Less Work = SCORE!

Super Easy, No Knead Artisan Bread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups bread flour

1 3/4 teaspoon salt (reduce to 1 teaspoon if you’re going to add salty ingredients like cheese, garlic salt, etc.)

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

Basically, you stick everything in a bowl, mix it, let it sit for 12-18 hours, shape it into a loaf, and cook it (450 degree oven for 45 minutes).  That’s it!

You probably want a little more direction than that, huh?  Here are step-by-step illustrated instructions, just for you!

I started with four simple ingredients: Flour, Salt, Yeast, and Water.  Actually, there are five ingredients, because the flour is a half and half mixture of bread and all-purpose flour.  If you don’t have both kinds of flour, just use one kind (either all-purpose or bread flour).

I put the dry ingredients in a bowl.

And I mixed them together.

Next, I added the water and began to stir it into the dry ingredients.

It started to come together, but it needed a tad bit more water (just a tablespoon or two).

And here it is. It looks like a sticky mess, but it’s actually perfect!

I covered the bowl with plastic wrap, then I set it on my kitchen counter, and I went to bed.

About 12 hours later, it looked like this, so I started preheating the oven (to 450 degrees).

I pulled out my Pampered Chef Heritage Baker (which I found on Craig’s list for next to nothing!), and popped it in the oven while it was preheating.

Meanwhile, I removed the plastic wrap…

Dumped the dough out onto the counter…

And formed it into a loaf. This is a very wet dough, so I formed it in a very similar manner as when I make white bread. You can see pictures of me forming a wet bread dough into a loaf here.

Next, I covered the bread dough with the plastic wrap from the bowl, and let it rest for 30 minutes while the oven preheated. It doesn’t actually take my oven 30 minutes to preheat, but, for this recipe, you need the pan very hot when you put the dough into it. It gives the dough a nice crisp crust.

It’s ready, and see? It’s grown just a bit in those 30 minutes. Now, I just need to move it to the pan.

It didn’t make it to the pan as a beautiful, round loaf, but it is a nice long oval.  I put the lid on the pan and cooked it for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I removed the lid and let the bread cook for an additional 15 minutes.

And it’s done!

Isn’t it beautiful?

Look at the lovely texture inside!

And here is the finished product. It turned out really well, if I do say so myself! The texture of the bread was just wonderful with a lovely crust on the exterior with tender, delicious bread inside. YUM!

Do you think you can do this?  You can!  You cannot mess this up if you follow these simple instructions.  Don’t have a stoneware covered pan?  Use cast iron.  Don’t have a covered pan?  Use a cookie sheet, just make sure to put down some cornmeal first, so your bread doesn’t stick to the pan.

So, are you game?  Are you going to make this delightful bread?

Do you have a super easy, go-to recipe you use?  Please share it with me!