Recipe

White Chocolate Cream

Name: White Chocolate Cream
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 160 g good white chocolate, finely chopped; 400 ml thickened or whipping cream (1 ⅔ cups), 35% fat; 1 tsp vanilla extract, or ½ vanilla pod; A pinch of fine salt

Whipped white chocolate cream that holds its shape for hours. Make it as a ganache the night before, chill, then whisk for one minute. For pavlova, berries, cakes and tarts.

vegetarian

Serves 8
Prep 15 min
Cook 5 min

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White Chocolate Cream — Photo: RitaE / Pixabay

Vanilla-sweet whipped cream that pipes like frosting and doesn't weep. Three ingredients, started the night before.

Recipe inspiration

A pavlova for Christmas lunch in 30 degree heat, a birthday cake that needs frosting but not buttercream, a punnet of strawberries that should feel like dessert. Plain whipped cream slumps and weeps within the hour. This holds. Making it the day before also clears a job off the busiest morning.

About this dish

White chocolate is cocoa butter, milk and sugar, with none of the dark cocoa solids. Nestlé launched the first commercial bar in Switzerland in 1936, Galak, sold in Britain as Milkybar. Since 2004 the US rules say it must hold at least 20% cocoa butter and 14% milk solids, and no more than 55% sugar; Europe sets the same cocoa butter and milk minimums.

That cocoa butter is what makes this work. Dissolved in hot cream, it's liquid. Chilled overnight, it sets again in tiny crystals through the cream, so the cream whips thicker and stays whipped. Pastry kitchens call it whipped ganache, or ganache montée. Baker Edd Kimber's version, in Chocolate Baking, is about 165 g white chocolate to 400 ml cream.

Done right it's thick, glossy and smooth as mousse, tastes of vanilla and cold milk, and stands in soft peaks without collapsing.

Additions & substitutions

Vanilla bean: split ½ pod and warm it in the cream; leave it to infuse 30 minutes, then reheat and strain over the chocolate. Edd Kimber's method.
Lemon: finely grated zest of 1 lemon in the cream as it warms, strained out. Sharp against the sweetness; good with berries.
Passionfruit or raspberry: fold 2 to 3 tbsp pulp or sieved purée through after whipping. Fold, don't whisk, or the acid thins it.
Liqueur: 1 to 2 tbsp Frangelico, Baileys, Cointreau or our chocolate liqueur, stirred into the ganache before chilling.
Coffee: dissolve 1 tsp instant espresso in the hot cream. See coffee.
Firmer, for piping or a filled cake: 200 g chocolate to the same cream.
Softer, for spooning: 120 g chocolate.
Vegan: dairy-free white chocolate and a whippable coconut cream. It sets softer; add 50 g extra chocolate.

Expert tips

Shopping

Block white chocolate, at least 28% cocoa butter if the label says. Lindt, Callebaut or a supermarket's premium block all work.
Not white "melts" or compound buttons. They use vegetable fat in place of cocoa butter, and the cocoa butter is what sets the cream.
Thickened or whipping cream, 35% fat. Light cream won't whip.

Preparing

Chop the chocolate fine, like gravel. Big chunks don't melt in the hot cream and you'll be tempted to reheat.
Steaming, not boiling. Take the cream off when small bubbles appear at the edge. White chocolate overheats easily and turns thick and greasy.
Chill it properly. At least 4 hours, overnight is best. Warm ganache won't whip, however long you beat it.
Whisk by hand or on low. It thickens in under a minute; Kimber whisks by hand for exactly this reason. Stop at soft peaks.

Make ahead, or for a crowd

The unwhipped ganache keeps 3 days in the fridge, covered.
Whipped, it holds 4 hours in the fridge, or on a pavlova at the table through a long lunch.
Double it in one saucepan for a crowd or a two-layer cake; whip in two batches so you can watch each one.

Serving suggestions

Piled on a pavlova with strawberries and passionfruit.
Beside a warm lava cake, apple pie or baked apples.
Between the layers or on top of a no-bake cake.
With a bowl of berries and nothing else. More in Fruit and vegetables.