Homemade Crème Fraiche

Here is another thing that is terribly expensive in the stores, but is so ridiculously easy to make at home: Crème Fraiche. 

If you have never made it yourself, do try! It’s so easy and so much less expensive than the store bought items.  Not to mention so much better tasting!

 

 

What exactly is Crème Fraiche you ask?

It is a thick and smooth soured cream with a rich and velvety texture. This matured cream has a  slightly sour taste produced by culturing cream. Personally I much prefer it to sour cream in many applications!

It does however take a few hours, so please plan ahead when making this.

 

You will need:

• whipping cream (The less pasteurized the cream, the less time it takes to thicken. Ultra pasteurized works too though!)
• buttermilk
• glass jar

How to make it:

1. Combine 1 cup whipping cream and  2 tablespoons buttermilk in the glass jar. Place the lid on the jar.
2. Shake the jar to combine everything.
3. Let stand at room temperature for 8 to 24 hours, or until thickened.
4. Stir through one more time and refrigerate. It will continue to thicken and take on a more tangy flavor as it ages.
5. Use within 10 days - 2 weeks.

Use in dressings and sauces, as a topping for desserts or fresh fruit, spoon over warm cobblers, add a dollop to your veggie soup or goulash, use it in baking, use it in homemade ice creams, use it anywhere you would use sour cream, etc. One of my favorite ways to use it, is a little dab of it into eggs for light and fluffy scrambled eggs!

It can be used in cooked/boiled recipes as Crème Fraiche will not curdle!

 

Can it be frozen? Much like yogurt and regular cream, the remaining water in the crème fraiche will separate. It can however be stirred back in. If you had planned to whip the crème fraiche however, you may find that it won’t whip up as well as it did before. For use as is however, it is fine, even after freezing!

 

 

The thickness in the above pictures is at room temperature, before refrigerating, after 18 hours of sitting on the counter. The crème fraiche was made with some leftover ultra pasteurized cream!

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that homemade Crème Fraiche, has close to 0g of carbs since all the remaining milk sugar was used by the cultures. I still count 0.5g of carb per 2 tbsp., just to account for whatever might be left! That's a personal choice however! On a commercial label it would show as 0g of carbs (unless there are added fillers) because the carb count is negligible!