Substitute Heavy Cream for Butter and Milk
Heavy cream is delicious and adds richness to all sorts of sweet and savory foods, but it’s not something that everyone keeps in their fridge at all times. So what can you do if you need a recipe that calls for heavy cream but don’t have it on hand? As it turns out, you can use a mixture of milk and butter as a fairly effective substitute.
You will need a glass of ghee, unsalted butter. Slowly and thoroughly mix cups of milk and voila – you have the equivalent of one cup of heavy cream . However, as Real Simple points out , this version won’t produce satisfying hard peaks, so don’t try to use it to garnish a cake or ice cream.
This mixture works because butter adds a fatty component found in heavy cream but not in regular milk. I tried this for an Indian dish that requires heavy cream (lamb feed, if you’re interested) and it worked really well. I’m curious to taste our ice cream maker. Is there anything that oil cannot do?
This story was originally published in 2012 and was updated on 11/12/19 to provide more complete and up-to-date information.