Our family ate dinner with my cousins about once a month as a child, and every single time my Aunt Diane would make fresh whipping cream to go with whatever dessert we were having. Chocolate cake, pavlovas, angel food cake… fresh whipped cream was the best part of every dessert, and I grew up knowing that I wanted to be that kind of hostess too.

Flash forward 20 years, and here I am making fresh cream as a side for berries, to go on breakfast crepes and as a topping for just about anything my family wants to eat. But I’ve gotten picky over the years, and now need my whipping cream to stand up and be “stabilized” to hold berries in formation and be okay sitting out for the evening without melting into a puddle! I’ve tried several methods to stabilize my whipping cream, and the easiest and most reliable of all is to use powdered sugar! This sweetens and stabilizes, so it’s a win in my book!

There are a few other tricks of the trade as well, so your whipped cream can turn out as well as Aunt Dianes!


To start, chill your metal bowl that you will whip the cream in. This may feel like an extra step, but it is worthwhile! A cold bowl speeds up the whipping process and I think gives you a better product! Using a hand mixer or the whisk attachment in the KitchenAid, whip on high.

​​Add in your powdered sugar at this point. I just eyeball the quantity, but it’s probably around ⅓ cup for a batch of whipping cream.

Very important: Once stiff peaks form, STOP WHIPPING. If you overmix, the cream will separate into buttermilk and butter. So stop when the job is done! Keeping the cream cold will give it the best peaks, so put your whipping bowl in a bowl of ice water if it’s hot or humid out!

Hope you and your crew love this whipping cream and find the tips helpful!

    Stefanie Hathaway
    Monthly Newsletter Contributor since 2016
    Email the author! stefanie@dvo.com