Basic Sugar-Free Whipped Cream

Note: Be sure you try the chocolate version!

There are 50 kazillion versions of this recipe out there on the Net. But I’m going to be making this so often, I might as well post my own version for reference.

Making your own whipped cream is definitely cheaper and healthier than buying the store-bought sugar-free stuff. It might also cost less than the sugared version. (As soon as we finish ChocolateFest, I’ll run the numbers and see if we have another price gloat!)

Basic Sugar-Free Whipped Cream

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• sweetener equal to 1 Tbsp sugar

Directions

Please note: These instructions are for use with a hand-held electric mixer. You could try using a whisk or an old-fashioned egg beater, but it would take longer.

1. Put cream and sweetener in a mixing bowl. Stir or whisk lightly to get the sweetener evenly distributed.
2. Start beating the cream with a hand-held mixer on low speed.
3. As the cream gets thicker, gradually increase the mixer speed. As the cream gets stiffer, you may need to stop once or twice and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, manually mixing some thinner bits back in with the rest.
4. You will only beat for a minute or so—just until cream is stiff and stands up in peaks when the beaters are removed. (Turn off the mixer before you test that, though!)
5. If you wind up with a thin liquid with white or light yellow clumps in it, you’ve gone too long. You now have sweetened unsalted butter! (With a side of sweetened old-fashioned buttermilk.) It would have been better without the sweetener, but go ahead and strain it and save the butter. It’ll be good on pancakes or something!

Yield: 1 cup whipped cream.

Nutritional Information: Assuming a zero carb, zero-calorie sweetener, one recipe contains approximately 3.3 g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 3.3 g net carbs, 2.5 g protein, 44.0 g fat, and 411 calories. (And that calorie count, boys and girls, is why we use this stuff in tablespoons!)