whipped cream

Amongst my group of friends, I am the birthday cake maker. Thus, when a friend told me she was hosting a "Swedish" dinner party to celebrate her 25th year, she asked if my contribution would be the cake. "Yes" was my immediate answer, and I suggested a princess cake.

A princess cake is no easy dessert; it involves six components: sponge cake, whipped cream, pastry cream, raspberry jam, simple syrup, and marzipan. But after extensively researching it and clearing away part of my weekend, I decided to give it a try. Luckily, the cake was a huge success! It was moist, delicious, and absolutely perfect.

Although I spent a lot of time worrying about it, each element of the cake was not that difficult. Since I've never worked with marzipan, rolling it out was the hardest part of the process. If you are an experienced baker looking for a scrumptious cake that will definitely impress, I suggest you make it. Here's the recipe and my photos.

When I was little, one of my favorite dishes was my dad's firehouse birthday cake. He was a fire chief, and like most firefighters, a great cook. His dessert specialty was a boxed chocolate cake that he jazzed up with a whipped cream cheese frosting and syrupy cherry topping; it was called firehouse birthday cake. Since he retired, I haven't had firehouse birthday cake, so with the original recipe in hand, I recently set out to bake an updated version of the dessert. Instead of a boxed mix, I made a devil's food chocolate cake from scratch and I replaced the canned cherries with fresh bing cherries. The resulting cake has all the delicious flavors I remember, but with a more sophisticated appearance. It's a rich and wonderful pairing of chocolate and cherries, cut with smooth, fluffy, thick cream. If you've got a birthday coming up, I highly recommend this cake. Here's the recipe.

I love any food or drink with a good story behind it, from Singapore Slings to Kentucky Hot Browns. That's why I've been wanting to make the Eton Mess, a strawberry dessert recipe with hundreds of years of English custom behind it, practically forever.

This no-cook berry pudding was first created sometime in the 1800s at Eton College, one of Britain's most distinguished public schools. It's served with great fanfare every year at the school's June 4 celebration picnic, which is held on the playing fields following a cricket game against the students of neighboring Winchester College.

Although historians believe it was first served with bananas, strawberries became de rigueur over the years, as did the addition of crumbled meringue cookies. Think of it as an inside-out pavlova — creamy, crispy, fruity, and sticky. For the five-ingredient recipe, read more.

One of the best things about the Spring and Summer is the delicious plethora of in-season fruit, particularly berries. A perfectly ripe berry is like a jewel — rich, beautiful, and addictive. This year we're celebrating the bite-sized world of berries by featuring a different berry each month. May is devoted to, yep you guessed it, strawberries!

Let us begin by rethinking a quintessential strawberry dessert. Everyone loves the combination of berries, biscuits, and whipped cream in strawberry shortcake and for a recent dinner party, I translated this concept into parfaits.

I layered sponge cake with whipped cream, simple syrup, and fresh berries. With each bite a little different, the resulting dish is absolutely divine: the cream is pillowy and light, the berries juicy and sweet, and the cake airy and moist. To look at the crowd-pleasing recipe, read more

My sister's favorite dessert is the brownie sundae. She's had countless brownie sundaes in her life, but for a recent party in her honor, I decided to put together the best brownie sundae ever. What makes this brownie sundae so spectacular is the double dose of mint and chocolate. There's mint chip ice cream, and the brownies are made with mint dark chocolate. I wanted to top the whole thing with a decadent fudge sauce, but ran out of time. Thus, the sundae is quite simple with just brownie, ice cream, and whipped cream. The simplicity adds to its scrumptiousness, and each bite is perfectly balanced. It's creamy, cool, chocolaty, and minty all at the same time. While you could easily do this sundae with store-bought ingredients, it's wildly rewarding to take the time to make the components from scratch. Between bites, my guests could not stop raving about how good this sundae was. My sister declared it, "one of the top 10 desserts" I've ever made! If you are looking for an impressive finish, I highly recommend the recipe. Get it, after the break.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to make a birthday cake for a friend. His favorite flavors are ginger, pumpkin, and chocolate — in that order, so I wanted to make some sort of layer cake that incorporated these elements.

After an extensive Internet search, I couldn't find a recipe. There are tons of ginger chocolate desserts and lots of pumpkin chocolate confections, but nothing that combines them all. Thus, I took matters into my own hands and created this gingerbread layer cake with pumpkin-spiced whipped cream and chocolate ganache drizzle. It's three different recipes that together, make one gorgeous and delicious cake.

The layers are moist, the filling pillowy, and the topping rich. It's a stunning and impressive cake full of holiday flavors, that I highly recommend. Everyone at the party loved it and your guests will too, so get the recipe.

While whipping cream for strawberry shortcake the other day, I was reminded of a helpful prep tip that I always employ: stay cool. Using refrigerated cream helps produce stiff peaks, but it's important to chill your mixing bowl and beaters — and even keep the kitchen frigid, if possible. When cream is whipped at a lower temperature, fat globules stick together to support the foam created by whipping in a large amount of tiny air bubbles. Therefore, beating cream at a cooler temperature will produce the largest amount of volume.

What are your best suggestions for whipping heavy cream?