Browned cream

[taxlady]

I came across a recipe that included browned cream. It gave directions for making it. I wasn't interested in the recipe, so I closed the tab. I think it said that you make it by slowly heating heavy cream until the liquid is mostly gone and then it starts to brown and eventually you are left with browned cream. The author waxed ecstatic about frying food in browned cream.

It's been bugging me and I can't remember what the recipe was or where. It may have been in the Washington Post. I would love to try making and using this. I did find two methods that don't work for me. One used a sous-vide and one required a wood burning oven. I want to find the method that uses a pot and you make it on a stove top.

Has anyone here used browned cream or made it? If so, would you tell us what you know about it?

 

[Aunt Bea]

I’m not familiar with browned or toasted cream but this article is quite detailed.

Toasted Cream Recipe

Just like browning butter, browning cream, whether you're using a sous vide circulator or a pressure cooker, transforms the dairy's fresh, grassy flavors into nutty butterscotch and toffee.

www.seriouseats.com

 

[taxlady]

Thank you Aunt Bea. That page really is interesting. I saved the recipe to Copy Me That. But, I still want to find out how to do it without equipment that I don't own. I hope someone here knows another way to make it, maybe an old fashioned way.

 

[pictonguy]

I would think the quality of the cream matters. In Canada heavy cream is basically crap who are controlled by the diary Mafia, lol. Fresh cream from a Swiss cow living at altitude might be a little different.

Anyway, now I'm curious about brown cream, never heard about it and i have my doubts whether it can add any value as opposed to just adding brown butter to a recipe, but certainly curious.

 

[dragnlaw]

The closest I çan t think of would be to melt your butter add flour. Mix and toast to a golden brown. You need to be very careful as brown and burnt are very close. Slowly add your heavy cream. I think that's about as brown as you can get., without special equipment. Maybe adding a touch of Bovril?

 

[Aunt Bea]

The idea reminds me of the old caramel recipes where you submerged an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pan of water and let it simmer for several hours.

https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/caramel-sweetened-condensed-milk/9005d4ff-d063-43da-9fc6-509cc50ae771

I wonder if you could safely do something similar with a small canning jar filled with heavy cream.

 

[dragnlaw]

That condensed milk is how they make dulce de leche, no?

 

[Aunt Bea]

That condensed milk is how they make dulce de leche, no?

I’ve never done it but I believe that is one method.

You can also buy it in many grocery stores.

 

[caseydog]

The closest I çan t think of would be to melt your butter add flour. Mix and toast to a golden brown. You need to be very careful as brown and burnt are very close. Slowly add your heavy cream. I think that's about as brown as you can get., without special equipment. Maybe adding a touch of Bovril?

That's basically a béchamel, but with a darker roux and cream instead of milk. I'm not so sure that would taste the same as what tax lady described.

BTW, the key to a dark roux is NEVER walk away from it. Stir, stir, stir.

CD

 

[taxlady]

The closest I çan t think of would be to melt your butter add flour. Mix and toast to a golden brown. You need to be very careful as brown and burnt are very close. Slowly add your heavy cream. I think that's about as brown as you can get., without special equipment. Maybe adding a touch of Bovril?

No, it's supposed to be just cream and possibly a small amount of baking soda.

 

[taxlady]

I would think the quality of the cream matters. In Canada heavy cream is basically crap who are controlled by the diary Mafia, lol. Fresh cream from a Swiss cow living at altitude might be a little different.

Anyway, now I'm curious about brown cream, never heard about it and i have my doubts whether it can add any value as opposed to just adding brown butter to a recipe, but certainly curious.

The thing that attracted me was something along the lines of, "Have you ever fried anything in browned cream?" It went on to laud the extra flavours and then a quick description of the process.

BTW, I don't buy regular whipping cream from the big companies. I hate all the horrid thickeners and stuff that they add.

 

[caseydog]

The part about frying in fried cream is not gelling in my head. I don't know how one would fry in cream. Brown butter, perhaps?

CD

 

[taxlady]

The part about frying in fried cream is not gelling in my head. I don't know how one would fry in cream. Brown butter, perhaps?

CD

Well whipping cream is 35% and up butter fat. I got the impression that the process of browning the cream drove off enough of the water liquid that you were left with mostly butter oil and some milk solids and extra flavours.

 

[taxlady]

Cream has more protein that butter does. So, the browning is different because the protein gets the Maillard reaction.

 

[dragnlaw]

I'm with casey. Yes, the cream can have the maillard effect, but I can't see frying in cream, brown or not. I call that steaming/boiling/stewing in a liquid.

Bliss' stir frying is not the same. She is not going to get crispy edges like you would want with your frying. But people who stir fry are not normally looking for that, are they.

 

[caseydog]

I'm with casey. Yes, the cream can have the maillard effect, but I can't see frying in cream, brown or not. I call that steaming/boiling/stewing in a liquid.

Isn't milk/cream sometimes used for poaching?

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

I don't think frying an egg and poaching an egg are quite the same thing,

 

[taxlady]

I got the impression that it was no longer watery; that it was more like oil when it was done. I don't see how that would happen in sous-vide or a pressure cooker.

 

[taxlady]

This is what I found. I may just follow these instructions and see what I get. This screenshot is from a website that has a recipe to use it. This description of how to make and use it is tantalizingly vague.

Finger licking good recipes from Slovenia - Potica with browned cream

www.slovenia.info

 

[pictonguy]

Here's my cheffy science brain take on this.

Ok, so for argument purposes lets say butter is around 80% fat with milk solids and water making up the other 20% and when the water is evaporated out it leaves about 1% milk solids of basically proteins and lactose from what I found in the literature.

Heavy cream is about 35% fat, give or take with 65% water and milk solids and when the water is evaporated out that leaves about 5-7% of milk solids in the form of protein and lactose.

Basically after the fat has separated from the milk solids and the water has evaporated out of the cream we're left with around 5-7 times the milk solids than butter.

I suspect, and I might actually try this this coming week that the same process for making brown butter can happen but I believe it would take a very careful and controlled heat source and time to make this happen, but I believe it could be possible. Whether it's actually a better product than brown butter is yet to be seen. I suspect it isn't and why it's never been a thing because if it did transcend brown butter then it would have been a thing during the same time brown butter was originally found, because that's what happens in reality and in kitchens.