05/12/2021

The Scoop on Dairy: Cultured Creams

Marcia Stanley | Dairy Products, Undeniably Dairy

I’m wrapping up our dairy food series with a primer on cultured creams.

Cultured cream simply means any cream, light, heavy or half-and-half, that goes through fermentation with beneficial bacteria. The one most familiar to Americans is sour cream. Others include crème fraiche and crema. Although not a cultured cream, I’ve included Quark in this blog. It’s one of those products that doesn’t quite fit into any category.

Sour Cream

Tangy with a rich, creamy texture, sour cream is made by adding either a bacterial culture or an acid to cream that contains at least 18% fat. Both processes thicken and flavor the cream, creating a delicious product with hundreds of familiar uses.
Reduced-fat and fat–free sour creams are produced like full-fat, except they start with half-and-half to make reduced-fat and skim milk to make fat free. These lower-fat versions use stabilizers to maintain the classic creamy texture of regular sour cream.

Use sour cream in chilled dips and spreads or add it to baked products for richness. For hot soups or sauces, stabilize the sour cream by whisking flour directly into it before cooking. Alternatively, wait and stir the sour cream into a hot mixture after removing it from the heat.

Crème Fraiche

Nutty and tangy, crème fraiche is thicker, higher fat (about 30%) and less tart than sour cream.
Mix crème fraiche with fresh herbs or citrus peel and serve it with meats or smoked fish. Whisk it into scrambled eggs or hot sauces for added richness. Due to its high fat and low protein content, curdling is not an issue when heating crème fraiche.
Sour cream makes a good substitute for crème fraiche in most recipes, but remember to stabilize it before heating.

Crema

Often used to balance spicy flavors in Mexican cooking, crema tastes sweeter and has a thinner consistency than either crème fraiche or sour cream.
Use crema to top fresh fruit or to cool the heat on savory dishes.
Crème fraiche thinned with a little lime juice is the best substitute for crema, but sour cream also works.

Quark

Firm, creamy and delicious, quark is made by heating whole, low fat or skim sour milk until it curdles. The curds are strained, creating a mild, creamy spread. Technically, it’s a spoonable, soft cheese, but the taste, texture and nutrient content (low in fat and high in protein) are more like thick yogurt.
Spread quark on toast or bagels, fill crepes with it or use it like Greek yogurt. In recipes, thick plain Greek yogurt works well as a substitute.
Make Homemade Quark with our recipe!

Thanks for following along on this dairy foods journey! If you missed them, check out blogs one, two and three!

About the author

Marcia K. Stanley uses her passion for great food and her food-science expertise to create consumer-friendly recipes and write about foods and nutrition. Her innovative recipes have appeared in 24 cookbooks, Better Homes and Gardens magazine, Midwest Living magazine, Country America magazine, Mature Outlook magazine, Fast and Healthy magazine, Health Matters magazine and on the websites of Land O’Lakes, McCormick, Fairlife, Cherry Marketing Institute, United Dairy Industry of Michigan, Hershey Foods, Kellogg’s, MorningStar Farms, Keebler and Kashi.

Marcia has a master’s degree in Foods and Nutrition. She lives in Michigan with her engineer husband, James Witzerman, and dog, Casey. Marcia enjoys cooking and sharing delicious foods with friends. As often as schedules allow, Marcia and Jim indulge in food-and-agriculture journeys in North America, South America, Africa and Europe.

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