calling all dopercooks!!

Cafe Society
1

i just spotted a recipe at tastykitchen.com i want to try that calls for double cream.

at first it threw me because it was a typo. *whatthehell is ‘double dream’ *i wondered, puzzled.

a quick google revealed it was double cream, common to european cooks but not here in the states.

my question to you dopercooks is do us yanks have anything comparable i can use for the recipe without completely screwing it up?

apparently double cream is 48% milkfat!! i’m pretty sure even our heavy whipping cream can’t compete with that.

2

Depending on what you are making, you may be able to substitute heavy cream without dramatically altering the outcome. Heavy cream is 36%-40% fat, so the difference between that and the 48% double cream might be fine.

You can probably find double cream a specialty/import stores, or if you have somewhere that does a traditional English tea, they probably have double cream (which they may or may not sell).

3

I recently found some in a supermarket. The ones that I have seen come in small glass jars and may be labelled Devonshire (Double) Cream.

I started looking in the dairy fridges but I found it in the deli section amongst the fancy/import cheeses.

The cream is like really soft butter and doesn’t pour. It has a flavour of cream (not butter).

I’ve never noticed a cream heavier than 35% (whipping) in the normal dairy case.

4

As noted above, heavy “whipping” cream will do just fine in most recipes.

5

Double cream in England is liquid (though viscous) - the stuff in the jar is clotted cream. I don’t know the difference in detail, and how clotted cream would work in a recipe. I’ve never really had a problem substituting heavy cream for double cream in the recipes I have used.

6

Need more info. Is the recipe a soup-type thing, where the cream is stirred in, or is it something baked, where the ratio of water to fat would be more crucial? Some recipes might depend on the extra fat, some might not.

Come back with more info and a link to the recipe kthxbye.

7

okay cooks, here’s the recipe link from tasty kitchen:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/main-courses/pork-tenderloin-with-gorgonzola/

8

You should be fine with heavy whipping cream here. If you wanted, you could cut down on the wine somewhat and use slightly more cream, but I wouldn’t. You could probably use more cream.

I’m skeptical that any recipe requires “good wine”.

9

Double cream is total overkill in a cheese sauce. There is more than enough fat in the cheese. Even a classic mornay only uses milk. I am dubious about including curry and wine. Lots of wines are antagonists with various curry spices.

10

It’s a simple rule: *never *cook with a wine you wouldn’t happily drink.

11

Since the cream question has been answered, I’d like to pose my own question about wine.

Everybody says never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink. Well, I don’t drink wine! I don’t like it! But I like to cook with it, and the taste of wine in cooked dishes. Which makes it hard to choose a wine. I tend to buy the little four packs of Gallo wines, chardonnay for white, and merlot for red. I also buy a cheap Marsala that sits on the counter until it’s gone. I’ve been known to cook with a merlot that my Dad likes occasionally, but it sometimes sits out on the counter for a week or so. Any open small bottles go in the fridge, for maybe a month or more.

I can’t taste the difference! Am I horrible? :wink:

12

No. You’re not horrible. :slight_smile: Those little 4-packs of wine at the grocery store are a) convenient as all hell and b) not that bad at ALL.

I’m not surprised you like to cook with it but not drink it - cooking off the alcohol and concentrating the sugars obviously changes the flavor, and it changes it to something you like. Whatevah. The point of the “dont cook with wine you wouldn’t drink” is IMO mostly to steer people away from that horrible salted “cooking wine” they sell cheaply on grocery shelves next to the vinegar, even in “dry” stores that don’t sell actual wine.