Wallowing in Homemade Crème Fraîche, Again!

It's finally crème fraîche season. You didn't know it has a season? Well, it sorta does. I make it and eat it all year round, because there isn't much you can't use it in. (If you've not tried it, think of it as a mild, almost nutty-tart sour cream-like, addicting product that won't separate when you add it to and food, hot or cold) and it whips! To buy it, it's quite expensive, but to make crème fraîche  is cheapo cheap. And for me, it has a season because I can eat so much of it that I gain weight . So I rather tend to use it more during the layered clothes-big sweater seasons of fall and winter if you get my drift. Nothing, but nothing, is more delicious.

When you buy it, you can end up paying as much as nearly $5 for a cup or so, but with this recipe, which I've put out there more than once, you can probably make a half gallon for about the same amount, especially if you use a bit from your current batch to make the next.

Crème fraîche is one of those essential things. If there isn’t any in my fridge it requires an immediate trip to the market. Not to actually buy crème fraîche, just to get the ingredients to make it at home. I have bought the culture to make the real thing, and it does make a product closer to what I’ve eaten in France, but buttermilk, and pasteurized heavy cream are enough to make an endless supply, so I can wallow in the luxury of having as much as I want. When it's nearly all gone I can use the last bit in my jar to make more by transferring it to a small bowl, washing the jar thoroughly, mixing the remaining crème fraîche with two cups of cream and start the fermenting process again.  Fabulous and...cheap.

Time to start another batch of Crème Fraîche!

Homemade Crème Fraîche

1 pint of heavy cream pasteurized (NOT ultra pasteurized)

¼ cup of cultured buttermilk

Tools: spoon, measuring cup, and a very clean quart or liter glass jar with a cover

How: pour the ¼ cup of cultured buttermilk into the bottom of the jar, pour in the cream, stir gently and thoroughly, and either partially cover the jar, or leave off the lid and cover the top loosely with a clean cloth or a paper towel. Set it aside at room temperature for 8 to 36 hours (depending on how warm your kitchen is, and how thick you want the finished product). Stir gently once or twice a day if you think of it, and while you are stirring you can judge how thick it’s getting. Try not to lick the spoon, although I am totally unsuccessful at it. Just don't double-dip.

When it’s nearly as thick as you’d like (somewhere between the thickness of yogurt and commercial mayonnaise), seal the jar with the lid and pop it in the refrigerator. It’ll keep about two weeks, and if you notice that you’re down to your last half to quarter cup of the stuff, you can use your already made crème fraîche as the starter for your next batch. So you can fearlessly use up all that excess buttermilk in pancakes, pies and cakes, and keep that crème fraîche jar going just about forever. It’s bottomless. Really. 

5 Delicious Things to Do with Your Homemade Crème Fraîche

Am trying to find some time to bury my toes in the sand. So please bear with a few reposts for the next couple of weeks. There will be some new material, but ...Happy Summer.

I know, I know. I've been banging the drum about making your own crème fraîche for months now, but honestly it's worth the 10 seconds (minus the sitting-on-the-counter-time) of actual work it takes you to make the glorious stuff. If you somehow missed the super-easy instructions I've posted before, you can find them here. But once you make it, you end up with a jar full, rather than the measly,  expensive little cupful you find in the market. A few of you have asked what you can do with such a bounty.

As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too much crème fraîche, just like you can never have too much chocolate. It's the sophisticated cousin of sour cream, and instead of a  sour tang, it has a nutty, full, more rounded flavor. And unlike one of it's parents, heavy cream, it keeps a long time. Mine will keep well up to a month in the coldest part of my fridge. If it lasts that long without having to start a fresh batch. I always start a fresh batch when I get down to my last half-cup or so.  Remember to keep a quarter cup or so to use as a starter with a bout 2 cups of single pasteurized heavy cream. Every day I can find a reason to dip into the jar of creamy goodness at least once.  God forbid I run out. Here's how I use mine (other than eating it right off a spoon):

Homemade crème fraîche.
For the record I did not eat the whole spoonful.

1.
As a topping for fruit, lightly sweetened or not.  I like it unsweetened, but taste it, and add a bit of sugar , honey, erythritol or stevia to your liking. Nothing is nicer than a bowl of sweet berries or peaches with a big ole spoonful of crème fraîche atop. All those ads showing strawberries with that fake-tasting frozen glop in a tub can't hold a candle to creamy crème fraîche. Or unsweetened as a topping for a baked potato, or better yet, a baked sweet potato. Nothing wrong with adding a sprinkle of blue cheese and some black pepper...

2.
Replace heavy cream with an equal amount of crème fraîche in baked goods. If your baking recipe calls for heavy cream, use your crème fraîche instead. It adds a depth of flavor you can't get from heavy cream. Cream pies, cakes, and ice creams are all seriously improved with crème fraîche.

3.
Whip it. You can whip it, and use it in either savory or sweet dishes. Mine usually whips more easily than regular cream, and if you stir a bit of curry paste into it before whipping it to dab on your crab cakes or spoon into your tomato soup, you won't be disappointed. Surprise your dining mates with savory whipped cream. They'll think you are a genius.

4.
Turn into a sauce or dressing. Just add your favorite seasonings,--- mine are currently Dijon mustard and anchovy paste, whisk in and the resulting sauce is perfect over grilled chicken, or over steamed vegetables like beets or green beans. To make into a dressing, you can do this, or simply mix with lemon juice, salt, pepper and a little minced fresh garlic. Need it lighter, use equal parts crème fraîche and plain fat-free Greek yogurt. A crème fraîche-yogurt salad dressing makes salad days seem a lot less penitential.

5.
Make cultured butter. If you have ever tasted cultured butter, you know why it costs so much over at Whole Paycheck. It's hard to go back to regular butter once you've had it or cooked with it. If you put a couple of cups of crème fraîche into a food processor or beat it with a hand mixer, just turn on the power, and keep going until it curdles up. Just takes a few minutes. Carefully, with a spatula, press out as much whey as you can, drain it off, and then add some cold water with an equal amount of ice to the curds and whirl again. Press out the water again with your spatula, and drain --keep going until it's all butter, and with the spatula, stir in a pinch or to of finely ground salt if you want salted butter. Go get some bread and eat. Don't share, it's that good.

A Silver Palate Cookbook Riff...Chicken Blanketed with Mushrooms & Speck

Sometimes a little disorganization pays off. A few weeks ago while looking for an entirely different cookbook on my shelves, I came upon my old, early 1980's copy of The Silver Palate Cookbook. I love this book, and being easily distracted, I sat on the floor in the hall and started thumbing through it, remembering old favorites, and the dinner parties I threw with this book propped on the counter as I cooked. Some books I consider seminal cookbooks for me; The Silver Palate was one, right next to it on the shelf lives the Frog / Commisary Cookbook another one.

Being young, newly married, and having bought our first home (mortgage rates were at 12% back then), we ate a lot of chicken, a lot. It was cheap, and you could dress it up, and I did. One of my absolute favorites was "Chicken Baked on a Bed of Wild Mushrooms". Wild mushrooms seemed so sophisticated back then, and I could squeeze the food budget enough to get them at the Mushroom Palace, over in Devon on a fairly regular basis. Just to make that recipe.

It was tempting to just make that old recipe as written, just one more time and I had the basic ingredients on hand, but I had other things, too, that I wanted to use for dinner that night. So my chicken, isn't on a bed, it's under a blanket. A creamy blanket of mushrooms and smokey pork (Italian speck) for good measure.

Chicken Blanketed with Mushrooms & Speck

Chicken Blanketed with Mushrooms & Speck

Inspired by "Chicken on a Bed of Wild Mushrooms" from The Silver Palate Cookbook.

Serves 4-6

1 oz. dried wild mushroom (porcini or morels)
1-1/2 cups boiling chicken stock
3T olive oil, divided
1-1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved through the middle and pounded flat
4 oz. of speck or lean smoked bacon, in 1/4" dice
8 oz. sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 cup finely chopped shallot
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup creme fraiche
1/2 cup sweet vermouth
2 tsp. dried marjoram
salt and pepper


1. Place the dried mushrooms in a heatproof bowl, and pour the boiling stock over them. Press down on them if needed to submerge. Let stand 10 minutes.  Spray a 4-quart shallow baking dish with cooking spray. Heat 2 T of the oil in a large, non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, and brown the chicken on each side for about 2 minutes. Remove the browned chicken to the sprayed baking dish, arranging evenly over the bottom of the dish. Turn off the heat under the skillet. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

2.  Remove the dried mushrooms from the stock,  set the stock aside, and chop into bite-sized pieces if necessary. Turn the heat under the skillet to medium-high, and add the last tablespoon of oil. Add the speck to the pan, along with the fresh mushrooms, the rehydrated dried mushrooms, the shallots and the garlic.  Cook until the fresh mushrooms give up their liquid. 

3. Add the creme fraiche, the vermouth, and 1 cup of the reserved stock. Add the marjoram, and season with the salt and pepper to taste. Cook uncovered until there is only about 1 cup of liquid left in the skillet. 

4. Carefully spoon the speck and mushroom mixture over the chicken, and pour over any remaining juices. Cover the baking dish with either a lid or foil, and place in the oven. Bake about 40 minutes. 

The Bottomless Jar of Crème Fraîche, Again

As most of you know, I work in a kitchenware store, and the long hours coming up for the next couple of weeks are keeping me from experimenting in the kitchen. So what you'll find posted here is just like TV in the summer: reruns. I'll be posting some of my more popular and interesting posts for the next couple of weeks, and will be back with new recipes and rants in the New Year. May you all have all the best and happiest things in your life for the Christmas Season and in the New Year. And thank you for coming along for the ride with me so far.

Makes simple food what our family calls "RQ" – Restaurant Quality. Everyone is just so shocked that you can make this wonderful stuff so easily and cheaply at home. Enjoy!

I’m cheap. Well, sort of, but there are a few things I won’t spend a lot of money on even if I consider them essential. So many of my favorite cooking tools, my cars and my dogs have been bought used (except for the current dog), and even my husband is second-hand, although I DID get him in a kitchenware store. 

In the food department, I’m willing to pay good money for goodies like maple sugar and olive oil --- things I can’t or don’t have the time or skill to make myself, but it kills me how expensive something as delicious, easy to produce, and useful as crème fraîche can be when you like to use it by the glob.  It has a wonderful, nutty-tart flavor, it doesn’t separate when you boil it, makes a wonderful easy addition to pan sauces and can make a no-cook sauce in a flash with just a few herbs, spices and a dash of salt. It whips beautifully, and lightly sweetened, it is much better on many desserts than basic whipped cream. 

Sour cream doesn’t hold a candle to this stuff, except maybe in a baked potato or on top of a nacho. Crème fraîche is so simple, and soooo good!

Crème fraîche is one of those essential things. If there isn’t any in my fridge it requires an immediate trip to the market. Not to actually buy crème fraîche, just to get the ingredients to make it at home. I have bought the culture to make the real thing, and it does make a product closer to what I’ve eaten in France, but buttermilk, and pasteurized heavy cream are enough to make an endless supply, so I can wallow in the luxury of having as much as I want. When it's nearly all gone I can use the last bit in my jar to make more by transferring it to a small bowl, washing the jar thoroughly, mixing the remaining crème fraîche with two cups of cream and start the fermenting process again.  Fabulous and...cheap.

Time to start another batch of Crème Fraîche!

Homemade Crème Fraîche

1 pint of heavy cream pasteurized (NOT ultra pasteurized)

¼ cup of cultured buttermilk

Tools: spoon, measuring cup, and a very clean quart or liter glass jar with a cover

How: pour the ¼ cup of cultured buttermilk into the bottom of the jar, pour in the cream, stir gently and thoroughly, and either partially cover the jar, or leave off the lid and cover the top loosely with a clean cloth or a paper towel. Set it aside at room temperature for 8 to 36 hours (depending on how warm your kitchen is, and how thick you want the finished product). Stir gently once or twice a day if you think of it, and while you are stirring you can judge how thick it’s getting. Try not to lick the spoon, although I am totally unsuccessful at it. Just don't double-dip.

When it’s nearly as thick as you’d like (somewhere between the thickness of yogurt and commercial mayonnaise), seal the jar with the lid and pop it I the refrigerator. It’ll keep about two weeks, and if you notice that you’re down to your last half to quarter cup of the stuff, you can use your already made crème fraîche as the starter for your next batch. So you can fearlessly use up all that excess buttermilk in pancakes, pies and cakes, and keep that crème fraîche jar going just about forever. It’s bottomless. Really. 

The Bottomless Jar of Crème Fraîche

I wanted to re-post this because, well, it's MAJOR berry season, and there is nothing better than plain or lightly sweetened crème fraîche over fresh berries, or berry desserts. Then consider it over peaches, nectarines...Makes simple food what our family calls "RQ" – Restaurant Quality. Everyone is just so shocked that you can make this wonderful stuff so easily and cheaply at home. Enjoy!

I’m cheap. Well, sort of, but there are a few things I won’t spend a lot of money on even if I consider them essential. So many of my favorite cooking tools, my cars and my dogs have been bought used (except for the current dog), and even my husband is second-hand, although I DID get him in a kitchenware store. 

In the food department, I’m willing to pay good money for goodies like maple sugar and olive oil --- things I can’t or don’t have the time or skill to make myself, but it kills me how expensive something as delicious, easy to produce, and useful as crème fraîche can be when you like to use it by the glob.  It has a wonderful, nutty-tart flavor, it doesn’t separate when you boil it, makes a wonderful easy addition to pan sauces and can make a no-cook sauce in a flash with just a few herbs, spices and a dash of salt. It whips beautifully, and lightly sweetened, it is much better on many desserts than basic whipped cream. 

Sour cream doesn’t hold a candle to this stuff, except maybe in a baked potato or on top of a nacho. Crème fraîche is so simple, and soooo good!

Crème fraîche is one of those essential things. If there isn’t any in my fridge it requires an immediate trip to the market. Not to actually buy crème fraîche, just to get the ingredients to make it at home. I have bought the culture to make the real thing, and it does make a product closer to what I’ve eaten in France, but buttermilk, and pasteurized heavy cream are enough to make an endless supply, so I can wallow in the luxury of having as much as I want. When it's nearly all gone I can use the last bit in my jar to make more by transferring it to a small bowl, washing the jar thoroughly, mixing the remaining crème fraîche with two cups of cream and start the fermenting process again.  Fabulous and...cheap.

Time to start another batch of Crème Fraîche!

Homemade Crème Fraîche

1 pint of heavy cream pasteurized (NOT ultra pasteurized)

¼ cup of cultured buttermilk

Tools: spoon, measuring cup, and a very clean quart or liter glass jar with a cover

How: pour the ¼ cup of cultured buttermilk into the bottom of the jar, pour in the cream, stir gently and thoroughly, and either partially cover the jar, or leave off the lid and cover the top loosely with a clean cloth or a paper towel. Set it aside at room temperature for 8 to 36 hours (depending on how warm your kitchen is, and how thick you want the finished product). Stir gently once or twice a day if you think of it, and while you are stirring you can judge how thick it’s getting. Try not to lick the spoon, although I am totally unsuccessful at it. Just don't double-dip.

When it’s nearly as thick as you’d like (somewhere between the thickness of yogurt and commercial mayonnaise), seal the jar with the lid and pop it I the refrigerator. It’ll keep about two weeks, and if you notice that you’re down to your last half to quarter cup of the stuff, you can use your already made crème fraîche as the starter for your next batch. So you can fearlessly use up all that excess buttermilk in pancakes, pies and cakes, and keep that crème fraîche jar going just about forever. It’s bottomless. Really.