If table cream has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 4 recipes to try it in.

What is table cream?

Table cream is a light pouring cream with a butterfat content of around 18 to 20 percent. It sits just above light cream (half&half) on the cream ladder, richer than the carton you splash in coffee but well short of whipping cream.

The name says how it is meant to be used: poured at the table over fruit or dessert, and stirred into cooking where you want a little richness without much weight.

What It Does

Table cream is a finisher. A pour smooths a soup, enriches a frittata like a Potato & Leek Frittata, or rounds out the custard in a Crab Quiche without making it heavy.

It also goes into coffee, where its 18 percent fat gives more body than half-and-half but still pours easily. In Canada this grade is commonly sold as 18 percent cream and used for exactly this everyday enriching.

What to Watch

Table cream will not whip. At around 18 percent fat it cannot trap enough air for peaks; you need at least 30 percent for that.

It also curdles if you push it. Boil it hard, or add it to wine or lemon, and the proteins break into specks.

Stir it in toward the end of cooking, off a rolling boil, and keep the heat gentle.

Substitutes

The nearest swap is light cream (half&half), which is a touch leaner but behaves the same in coffee and cooking. Heavy cream thinned with a splash of milk also lands close.

Going lighter, whole milk stands in when you only need a little richness, just with less body in the finished dish.

Buying and Storage

Table cream turns up in the dairy case, more common in Canada than the US, often labeled by its fat percentage. Read the number on the carton, since "table," "light," and "coffee" cream overlap and vary by brand.

Keep it cold at the back of the fridge and use within about a week of opening. It sours faster than heavy cream, so sniff it before adding to hot coffee, where a turned carton will curdle on contact.

Quick facts

In Chinese

表霜

British (UK) term

Table cream

en français

crème de table

en español

crema de leche

Recipes using table cream

There are 4 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 4 recipes