No. 32

How to Stabilize Whipped Cream with Gelatin

Chantilly cream, or "Whipped Cream," has an unfortunate tendency to melt and leak liquid if left for too long. At room temperature, this can happen in as quickly as a few minutes. Even refrigerated, emulsified cream will ooze an unappeziting liquid which immediately ruins a good pastry.

Many bakeries use a technique to stabilize chantilly cream, making it last extra long for piping and presentation—even at room temperature. The trick is to use a bit of gelatin which maintains the emulsified structure locking the water in place.

Ingredients

Makes 2 cups of whipped cream.

• 235 grams heavy whipping cream (8.3 ounces, 1 cup), as cold as possible
• 25 grams (0.9 ounces, 2 tablespoons) white granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla or 1 vanilla bean pod
• 3 grams powdered gelatin (0.1 ounces, about 2 teaspoons), 200-bloom such as Knox brand

If you are using vanilla bean, you will need to infuse the vanilla and let the cream chill in advance. Only cool cream can be whipped.

Equipment

Method

Start by "blooming" the gelatin. Powdered gelatin is very dry and will quickly absorb any moisture. If allowed to sit for only a short bit of time, small clumps will expand around dry pockets, blocking moisture from reaching the center. These clumps will ruin your product, so there are a few strategies to avoid this:

1. Only use very chilled water. Warm water blooms the gelatin faster, blocking moisture from reaching all of the powder. Very cold water will buy you more time to disperse the water through all of the gelatin.
2. Quickly whisk the gelatin together with the water as soon as it is added. If you don't have a small whisk, use a fork to maximize the agitation.

Carefully target any lumps and dry patches. You have a short working window here, within a few seconds, to make sure all of the powder comes into contact with the water.

While the gelatin blooms, whip your heavy cream to "soft peaks" stage. Soft peaks mean that when you draw your whisk up, the "peaks" of cream should barely hold up. "Stiff peaks" on the other hand means that they should hold spikes. Stiff peaks is the final form you want, so we will finish whipping to stiff peaks after the gelatin is added.

Now microwave the the bloomed gelatin until fully liquid, about 2 bursts of 5 seconds each. However, the time heavily depends on your microwave so start low and proceed with caution. The gelatin should be fully liquid, but not too hot to touch.

Set aside 1/3 of your cream to mix with the gelatin. This will be folded into the rest later.

Then fold this gelatin-cream back into the rest of the cream using a rubber spatula. If your cream is still too soft, you can continue to whip until stiff.

Now stabilized with gelatin, this chantilly cream should hold its shape for quite some time—several hours to days.

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