Cream
Cream is the rich, high-fat portion of milk, used in cocktails to add body, smoothness, and a mellow dairy sweetness. Heavy or double cream is generally preferred for its ability to hold a light froth when shaken. It transforms a drink's texture as much as its flavour.
Allergens: dairy
Common uses
- adds body to shaken dessert-style cocktails
- softens strong spirits
Buying & storage
A few days: Dairy. Follow the carton, and note that acidic drinks will split cream that is anywhere near turning.
Buying: Double cream (around 48% fat) for anything that needs to float or whip; single cream will not hold. Check the fat percentage rather than the name, which varies by country.
Storage: refrigerate and use by the date on the carton; does not freeze well
In depth
Understanding cream
How it is made, where it comes from, what it pairs with, and how it behaves in an alcohol-free drink.
How it's made
Fat content is the only specification that matters. Double cream (around 48%) whips readily and floats; single cream (around 18%) does neither reliably. For a floated cream layer the cream must be lightly whipped — thickened enough to hold a ribbon, not stiff — and poured over the back of a spoon onto a drink sweet enough to support it.
Origin
A standard dairy product; its cocktail use dates to the nineteenth-century flip and fizz families and, in the twentieth century, to the dessert-drink boom.
What it pairs with
Coffee, chocolate, warm spice and nutty liqueurs. Cream and fresh citrus curdle on contact, so anything combining them is either shaken hard and drunk immediately or built in a specific order.
In alcohol-free drinks
- Behaves identically without alcohol: the float on an alcohol-free Irish coffee is the same technique
- Coconut cream is the standard dairy-free alternative and brings its own strong flavour, so it changes the drink rather than substituting invisibly
Before it goes
Use up cream
Ranked by how much of it each drink uses and how little else it needs — the ones at the top will not send you back to the shop.
- Brandy Alexander
Uses 30ml. Also needs cognac, dark crème de cacao.
- Grasshopper
Uses 30ml. Also needs green crème de menthe, white crème de cacao.
- Golden Cadillac
Uses 30ml. Also needs galliano, white crème de cacao.
- White Russian
Uses 20ml. Also needs vodka, coffee liqueur.
Recipes
Cocktails containing this ingredient
Stand-in
Where cream is a recommended substitute
Recipes that name it as a swap for something else, with what it replaces.
- Piña Coladain place of coconut cream
- Chi-Chiin place of coconut cream
Swap it
Possible substitutions
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