crème liquide - single or whipping cream (UK: depending on indended use) ( translation glossary) types of cream,Cooking / Culinary,

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GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

French term or phrase:	crème liquide
English translation:	single or whipping cream (UK: depending on indended use)
Entered by:	Carol Gullidge

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4:40pm Feb 8, 2007

French to English translations [PRO]
Cooking / Culinary / types of cream

French term or phrase: crème liquide

I've been working under 2 assumptions (both probably mistaken):

(a) that crème liquide is single cream
(b) that single cream doesn't thicken when whisked

which leads me to think that the following is a contradiction in terms:

Monter la crème liquide en crème fouettée bien ferme avec un batteur électrique

Would it be fair to translate the "crème liquide" as whipping cream in this context?
It occurs in several recipes... Or, is it assumption (b) that is wrong? Or both?

Thanks for any clarifications!

Carol Gullidge

KudoZ activity
Questions: 192 (1 open)
Answers: 1646

United Kingdom

Clarification request(s) and response

Miranda Joubioux: 4:46pm Feb 8, 2007: "Crème liquide" can be whipped, although it takes much longer than UK whipping cream. This said, the majority of French "crème liquides" are fairly thin like single cream. There are some though, like crème "fleurette", which whip a lot better.
Carol Gullidge: 5:06pm Feb 8, 2007: Thanks, everybody, and for the extremely helpful peer comments
And, yes, I DO want the recipe to work!!

It sounds as though "whipping cream" might be the safest bet - saving the reader much time and frustration These recipes are meant to save people time and energy... So the UK "single cream" probably wouldn't fit the bill at all!
Carol Gullidge: 11:54am Feb 10, 2007: thanks, everybody for your help! The question related to this particular context, so I feel that all the answers involving "whipping cream" were most helpful, but other answers and peer comments also reinforced my thinking. And of course I couldn't simply leave it up to the readers do decide for themselves, as the idea of a recipe book is to help even novices not to have culinary disasters!

see answer - it can be both!

Explanation:
Crème liquide is single cream, but it will whip when it is the full fat version (35% fat) (and it should also be very cold).

That then makes it whipping cream according to this definition : "whipping cream
n : cream that has enough butterfat (30% to 36%) to be whipped" (http://dict.die.net/whipping%20cream/)

Selected response from:

Emma Cypher-Dournes
France

Note from asker to answerer

thanks, Emma. You were first to come up with "whipping cream"
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

5 +6

see answer - it can be both!

Emma Cypher-Dournes

4 +2

cream

Sheila Wilson

3 +3

double cream or whipping cream

tatyana000

2 +3

whipping cream

Emma_C

5 -1

whole fresh cream

Ségolène Neilson

liquid fresh cream

Francis MARC

half & half

jean-jacques alexandre

3 -2

pouring cream

Elizabeth Slaney

Answers

5 mins confidence:

liquid fresh cream

Explanation:
the fresh cream can be "liquide", "semi-liquide" or "épaisse", it is just related to the consistancy

Sophie Dudemaine : cooking recipes, guest rooms, books, tv shows40 cl liquid fresh cream 3 tablespoonfuls of finely cut herbs: chives, estragon, parsley. Sprinkle salt and pepper to your taste. ...
www.lamaisondesophie.com/inenglishdep.php?id_art=552&idth=2... - 42k - En cache - Pages similaires

-- [ Traduire cette page ]125 ml liquid fresh cream. How to : Put all ingredients in the mixer, close it and mix to make juice then add the yoghurt and lemon juice. ...
www.zouleika.com/naturalcleansingmilk.htm - 16k

Francis MARC
Lithuania
Native speaker of:

French
PRO pts in category: 52

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

neutral

Ségolène Neilson: serais-tu susceptible? la solution c'est de rigoler de ses faiblesses nous en avons tous bien que cette société veule qu'on les cache! Je te serais donc reconnaissante de bien vouloir corriger mes erreurs pour que je m'améliore. Bonne soirée!

1 min

-> merci pour cette pécision capitale qui n'a pas trait à la réponse, je ne manquerai pas de contrôler votre propre orthographe à l'occasion

disagree

Tony M: One of the big problems is that French cream is NOT fresh, but is sterilized; thus adding "fresh" amounts to over-interpretation (even though in the UK you might HAVE to use fresh!)

1 hr

neutral

Bourth: Tony should try Lidl, which due to the German influence no doubt, now sells lovely cream-as-we-know-it, almost.

6 hrs

agree

Melzie: a useful thing I saw on a French cooking program was that crème liquide thickens a sauce and crème épaisse 'loosens' one. Crème liquide is as near to single cream as you can get, and you Can get it non-UHT in supermarkets too!

19 hrs

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): -1

whole fresh cream

Explanation:
Looking up at a recipe for crème chantilly this is the translation given for crème liquide miam miam!

Ségolène Neilson
United Kingdom
Works in field
Native speaker of:

French

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

neutral

Francis MARC: whole cream est pour de la crème "entière" par opposition à de la crème allégée en matières grasses

4 mins

-> merci Francis on ne mentionne nulle part dans la question qu'il s'agit de crème allégée....

disagree

Tony M: One of the big problems is that French cream is NOT fresh, but is sterilized; thus adding "fresh" (and also "whole") amounts to over-interpretation/V. hard to find (have to know farmer!), and crème frîche NOT the same

1 hr

-> Tony je ne sais pas où tu habites en France mais je suis surprise par ce que tu dis. En effet en Bretagne, Normandie et Auvergne où j'ai résidé il m'a toujours été possible d'acheter de la crème fraîche non stérilisée faite par la fermière du coin.

10 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +6

see answer - it can be both!

Explanation:
Crème liquide is single cream, but it will whip when it is the full fat version (35% fat) (and it should also be very cold).

That then makes it whipping cream according to this definition : "whipping cream
n : cream that has enough butterfat (30% to 36%) to be whipped" (http://dict.die.net/whipping%20cream/)

Emma Cypher-Dournes
France
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 4

Note from asker to answerer

thanks, Emma. You were first to come up with "whipping cream"

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

Claire Cox: Single cream available in the UK definitely doesn't whip, so whipping cream would be the only correct translation to avoid confusing UK readers

6 mins

agree

Katherine Mérignac: The whole problem is that crème liquide in France covers everything from single through to double - extremely difficult making English puds in France - so bite the bullet and go for "whipping cream"... after all, you do want the recipe to work don't you?!

7 mins

agree

Catherine Johnstone

10 mins

agree

Erika Pavelka: I agree with whipping cream, if that's what it's called in the UK (it's exactly what we have here in Canada - 35% cream in a carton that whips up very nicely!)

13 mins

agree

Vicky Papaprodromou

28 mins

agree

Muriel Blanc

13 hrs

17 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

double cream or whipping cream

Explanation:
In the US, the closest equivalent to creme liquide is what we call "heavy cream", which not only thickens when whipped, but eventually turns into butter if you do it long enough.

When I googled for definitions, the UK equivalents I found were double cream or whipping cream.

Same as whipping cream or UK double cream.
www.romwell.com/cookbook/Glossary/glossary.htm

The American term for Double Cream
thefoody.com/glossary/glossaryh.html

tatyana000
France
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English

31 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

whipping cream

Explanation:
This is a tricky one because French cream types and English cream types just don't match. Crème liquide seems to be the bog standard cream on sale in France. I do agree that for an English audience you would need to translate it with either Single Cream, Double Cream or Whipping Cream, as those are the three well-known categories of cream for us Brits. I would translate it with whipping cream, because it has the same texture as crème liquide to start out with, and gets the desired result of crème fouettée that you want.

As regards to the technicalities of fat levels and an accurate translation, I think the other answerers have done a good job so I'll steer clear of making a comment on that one!

As Miranda says, crème liquide takes longer to whip than whipped cream; but it just means that the French will be standing with their whisks in their hands for longer than the British! The results will be the same in the end :-)

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 39 mins (2007-02-08 17:20:16 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Sorry everyone, I started answering and then the kettle finished boiling so I HAD to make myself a pot of Tetleys. When I got back a few more of you had posted so I may sound repetitive now!! :-)

Emma_C
France
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 4

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

Tony M: Although the equivalence may not be exact, for the practical purposes of the recipe in this particular given context, this would be the best solution

40 mins

-> thanks Tony. Hmm... given my recipe following "skills" I would need it to be as clear as possible!!

agree

Cervin: I go with whipping cream too. Here in Uk (in my humble experience) pouring cream and single cream just dont thicken properly-if at all -when whipped.

1 hr

-> ooh but you are so lucky to be able to get hold of double cream :-))) Thanks Cervin!

agree

Bourth: Absolutely, no match. Note that single, double etc? cream are unheard of in NZ, where there is just the one (in addition to what comes on top of the milk). I wonder about the US.

6 hrs

-> Similar to France then. I didn't realise it was so rare to have such a variety of types of cream! Thanks Bourth!

41 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): -2

pouring cream

Explanation:
I seems to be a matter of fat content. So the ability to whip single or double cream depends on this (hence it would or would not be "whipping cream"). The term "pouring cream" covers both of these types of cream so might be a safer option.

Reference: http://www.britishexpat.com/Food__Dairy_Cream.304.0.html

Elizabeth Slaney
United States
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English

5 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +2

cream

Explanation:
We're all agreed that there are differences - France DOES have fresh cream, even though it tastes 'off' to the British palate and it comes in thin, thick and whipping forms, but do we really need to worry? The recipe clearly says you should whip it until it's thick - surely the average English-speaking house wife or house husband can work out for themselves what to use. I seem to remember that the packaging normally says what it's for.

Sheila Wilson
France
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 8

14 hrs confidence:

half & half

Explanation:
I don't know in the U.K., but in the U.S.of A. it's usually the way it's called, it can be whipped, added in a sauce for thicknening, in a word you find it quite often required in several recipes

jean-jacques alexandre
France
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

French
PRO pts in category: 12

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French: crème liquide

English translation: single or whipping cream (UK: depending on indended use)