To those of you who've been forced to choose between heavy and whipping cream at the supermarket, you've probably pondered it yourself: isn't all cream more or less the same thing?
Not exactly. There are differences in the percentage of milk-fat content. All cream contains at least 18 percent milk fat: "whipping cream" is made up of 30 percent, while cartons labeled "heavy cream" or "heavy whipping cream [1]" must contain 36 percent or more. Whipping cream, heavy cream, or heavy whipping cream all work for recipes that incorporate whisked air, but don't reach for that half-and-half; at 10.5 to 18 percent milk fat, it simply won't cut it. The more fat content a cream contains, the more stable it's likely to be in a whipped state. Check out our peanut butter whipped cream recipe [2] for guaranteed success.
— Additional reporting by Haley Lyndes
