What can you substitute for cream?
Many housewives think about what other product can replace cream in various situations. Gourmets are interested in how to make a substitute on their own, existing recipes, and culinary reviews.
What it is?
Cream is the fattest part of the liquid accumulated on top of the already standing milk. The pasteurized product is not as thick as it is originally. Cream has a high nutritional value.
The product contains a huge amount of vitamins, lecithin, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, phosphorus, organic acids. The fat content of cream varies from 8 to 35%. Accordingly, calories are from 119 to 337, proteins - from 2.2 to 2.8, carbohydrates - from 3.2 to 4.5. The human body easily absorbs the product.
Often fat cream is used for the preparation of confectionery, various sweet creams. For these purposes, products with a fat content of 20% or more are used. The fatter the cream, the better it will whip. When whipping, the liquid turns into an air mass of a stable form. Whipped cream is added to dessert, mousse. They are needed for baking and decorating cakes, pastries, sweet rolls and pies. Dishes acquire an exquisite taste and attractive appearance.
Unsweetened dishes are also sometimes diluted with cream. The product is often taken to make casseroles, pasta, pizza and other dishes. Sauces for salads, fish and meat dishes also cannot do without cream. Liquid cream of 10-15% fat content is added to soups, gravy, various sauces.
Substitutes
Instead of cream, you can use milk and sour cream. Ryazhenka, kefir, yogurt, which are at hand, are also well suited for this purpose. The product can be replaced with condensed milk. It is an excellent substitute for whipped cream, great for adding to sweet dishes, desserts. You need to beat with a mixer 1.5 cups of condensed milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice.
Sour cream and yogurt are mixed in equal proportions to obtain a thick cream for the cake. Custard is also sometimes replaced with a whipped product. For making sweet creams, sauces and biscuit cake, instead of cream, it is best to choose sour cream. It is similar to cream in terms of protein and fat content. Sour cream is saturated with milk proteins and amino acids. The finished dish acquires a slightly sour taste.
Sweet caramel cream with cream is used to decorate cakes. If you take 300 ml of sour cream instead of cream, add 150 grams of butter, a glass of sugar and a little vanillin, you get an incredibly tasty and thick caramel cream. Beautiful curls, patterns, flowers will not spread over the surface of the cake.
Too fatty sour cream is recommended to be diluted by half with water. A product with a fat content of 20 to 40% is diluted with milk. Sour cream 10–20% fat is usually thinned with a little milk or boiled water.
Regular milk can serve as a substitute for cream in sauces and batters. After heat treatment, there will be no sour taste. Unlike sour cream, it will not curdle. If cream is needed to give the dish density, then the milk must be thickened with flour or corn starch.
Overweight people are advised to replace heavy cream with a coconut product. Coconut flakes should be poured with boiling water in a ratio of 1: 2, beat in a mixer.Then you need to strain the milk mixture. The product tastes like regular cream, but contains much fewer kilocalories. For the manufacture of vegetarian pasta, the product is replaced with avocado cream.
The best ghee comes from cream. The melted fat has a delicate soft texture. The product is transparent and without sediment. It is stored for a long time. Instead of cream, butter is useful. Pieces of butter are placed in a container filled with a quarter of hot water. The vessel is placed in a large pot of water, brought to a boil. Salt is added to ghee at the rate of 2 teaspoons per 1 kg of product. The product is infused, then a transparent layer of fat is poured into a clean bowl.
Self-manufacturing
Cream can be prepared at home - it does not take much time.
Step-by-step instruction:
- a mixture of grated frozen butter (350 grams) and milk (2 cups) is placed in a water bath;
- when heated, constant stirring is required;
- after heating, the liquid is whipped in a mixer until a homogeneous consistency is obtained;
- then the product is covered with a film and left in the refrigerator for 12 hours;
- the milk mixture is beaten again until a thick foam is formed, gradually pouring powdered sugar into it.
For light cream, butter can be replaced with margarine.
Well-strained sour cream through a multi-layer gauze, whipped with a mixer, is an excellent substitute for cream. Medium-fat sour cream, tied in gauze, is suspended all night over a container into which liquid flows. In the morning, put weighed sour cream into a clean bowl.It is slightly denser than whipped cream, making it great for garnishing iced coffees, cocktails, strawberries, cakes, and more.
Often, a cream for decorating sweets is made from butter (1 pack), powdered sugar (1 cup) and sour cream (200 ml). After thorough whipping, the dessert is covered with the mixture. Buttercream can be made by whipping a banana with an egg white. Then you should add a little sugar and vanilla.
Condensed milk is mixed with butter in a ratio of 1: 1. When using a cream substitute from condensed milk, sugar is poured less than necessary for sweet pastries. Such a product gives the dough a gentle friability, friability.
A standard pack of cottage cheese, mixed with powdered milk (4 tablespoons) and whipped to the consistency of thick cream, is added to soups, casseroles, gravies. For the preparation of soufflé, recipes use a substitute made by mixing milk (0.5 cups) with powdered sugar (200 grams) and mashed fatty cottage cheese. You can make a thick mixture with gelatin: 20 grams per glass of liquid.
Recipes with substitutes
To prepare a delicious Bechamel sauce, milk is taken instead of cream and act as follows:
- you need to melt 50 grams of butter, add the same amount of flour and fry a little;
- then you need to gradually add a liter of milk;
- after 5 minutes, the mixture must be salted, pour a little sugar, crushed nutmeg and black pepper into it;
- the product should be brought to a boil, after which more butter (50 grams) is lowered into it.
This sauce goes well with pasta, meat and vegetable dishes.
Fudge is made by also taking milk instead of cream:
- 0.5 kg of sugar is poured into milk, heated, preventing the liquid from boiling, periodically stirring the contents of the pan;
- add 1 tablespoon of honey, without stopping stirring the mass;
- a piece of the finished hot mixture is dipped into cooled boiled water;
- roll balls with palms;
- as soon as the ball stops sticking to the palms, the product is ready.
Cheesecake, which has gained popularity in recent years, is obtained by replacing cream with fatty non-acidic sour cream:
- gelatin (20 grams) is poured with cooled boiled water (100 ml), infused for an hour;
- crushed sugar cookies (300 grams) are mixed with melted butter (100 grams);
- the resulting homogeneous mass is placed in prepared molds and sent to the refrigerator for 20–25 minutes;
- gelatin is heated, but do not allow it to boil;
- whipped weighed sour cream is mixed with low-fat cottage cheese and gelatin;
- cover the biscuit base with the resulting mixture;
- keep in the refrigerator for another 3 hours.
Fragrant and very tasty mushroom soup is obtained even after instead of cream, sour cream slightly diluted with milk is added to it:
- mushrooms (200 grams) finely chopped;
- fry them on vegetable margarine for 7-10 minutes;
- gradually add flour (25 grams);
- sour cream diluted with milk is poured into boiling water;
- fried mushrooms are lowered there;
- add salt, pepper;
- Before serving, the soup is decorated with greens.
Tips
Numerous culinary reviews indicate that that it is necessary to replace cream with other products for several reasons:
- there was no ingredient nearby at the time of preparation of the dish with cream;
- with individual intolerance to dairy products;
- adherents of vegetarianism;
- wishing to lose weight.
Vegetarians and people with allergies to lactose and casein can benefit from vegetable cream. Unlike conventional dairy products, coconut and palm cream have a long shelf life.
Other gourmets are advised to replace the product:
- in pasta and sauce - milk diluted with butter;
- in soup - sour cream diluted with milk;
- in cake cream - condensed milk;
- in sweet pastries - condensed milk with butter.
How to make cream of any fat content from milk and butter, see the following video.