How To Make Whipped Cream

Another week. Another set of sunrises over Lake Superior. Another set of meals cooked for one and eaten at a table set for two. The two-place setting is the thing the kids have stopped commenting on. They used to remark when they came to visit. They used to gently suggest, in the way grown children gently suggest, that perhaps it was time to set just one. Now they set their own additional plates around mine and they let Paul's plate be Paul's plate. The setting is the love. The setting is the staying. Elsa called from Voyageurs. She had a sighting of a wolf — a single gray adult crossing a frozen bay at dawn, fifty yards from her cabin. She had a sighting of a moose two days later. She is happy in the woods. I am glad someone in this family is happy in the woods. I have always loved Lake Superior, but the deeper woods are not for me. Elsa is for the deeper woods. The match is right. Anna sent photos from Minneapolis — the kids in their school uniforms, David's new bookshelf, the dog (their dog, not mine; their dog is named Cooper, and Cooper is a Bernese mountain dog who weighs more than Anna and who is, by all accounts, the most relaxed dog in the upper Midwest). I printed three of the photos and put them on the fridge. The fridge holds the family that is not currently in the kitchen. I cooked Princess cake this week. The sacred cake. Three layers of sponge, vanilla cream, raspberry jam, whipped cream, all enclosed in a dome of pale green marzipan. Topped with a single rose. Made for weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays. Made for the same reason in every generation. Damiano Thursday: soup. The crowd was the usual size — about a hundred and twenty plates served between five and seven. Gerald and I worked side by side without talking. The not-talking was the friendship. The work has its own rhythm: ladle, hand, smile, ladle, hand, smile. The rhythm carries us through. I sat in the kitchen at 11 PM with a glass of wine and Paul's photograph. I did not cry. I just sat. The not-crying is its own form of being with him. We did not need to talk all the time when he was alive. We do not need to talk all the time now. The companionable silence has carried over. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. Paul used to say that the difference between a place and a home was that a home was a place where you knew, from any room, what was happening in any other room. I knew, from the kitchen, when he was reading in the living room. I knew, from the bedroom, when he was getting coffee in the kitchen. The Kenwood house is still that kind of home. From the kitchen I know that Sven is asleep on his bed in the dining room (the small specific snore). From the kitchen I know what time the radio in the living room is set to come on. The home is the body of knowledge of itself. I still live inside that body of knowledge, even though Paul is not the one creating most of the data anymore. It is enough.

The Princess cake cannot exist without the whipped cream — not the kind from a can, not a shortcut, but the real thing, made slowly with cold cream and a little patience. Paul loved that layer best. He used to say it was the only part of the cake that felt like it was still breathing. I have made whipped cream by hand and by mixer, in summer and in the depth of a Minnesota winter, and it has never once failed to feel like the right thing to do with one’s hands when the heart is quiet and the kitchen needs you.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 cup heavy whipping cream, very cold
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Chill your equipment. Place your mixing bowl and whisk or beater attachments in the freezer for 10–15 minutes before you begin. Cold equipment helps the cream whip faster and hold its shape longer.
Combine the ingredients. Pour the cold heavy whipping cream into the chilled bowl. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract.
Whip to soft peaks. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium-high speed, beat the cream until soft peaks form, about 2–3 minutes. The cream will roughly double in volume and look billowy and light.
Check consistency. For a topping or filling (such as a Princess cake dome), continue beating another 30–60 seconds until stiff peaks form — the cream holds its shape when the beater is lifted. Do not over-beat or the cream will become grainy and begin to separate.
Use immediately or store. Use right away as a filling, topping, or dome layer. If not using immediately, cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours. Give a gentle stir before using if any liquid has settled at the bottom.

Nutrition (per serving)

How To Make Whipped Cream — The Heart of a Princess Cake, and Everything It Carries