Bringing whipped cream back from the brink

Overwhipped cream.

Tell me you’ve never done this before: There you are, whipping cream to go along with your luscious pumpkin pie or other dessert masterpiece, knowing that you’re probably getting close to perfect peaks when—whoops!—all of a sudden you push it too far and the cream goes from fluffy to grainy in a split second. Do you quietly curse yourself as you scrape the batch into the trash and pray you have enough cream to start over again? No, you don’t. What you do instead is add a few tablespoons of fresh cream to the overwhipped cream and start whipping again.

Rescued whipped cream.

As long as the overwhipped cream hasn’t begun to form clumps of butterfat (which means it’s more than just a little overwhipped and is actually on its way to becoming butter), the fresh cream should quickly smooth out the graininess. But this time, stop whipping before you overdo it again. For extra insurance, you can whip the fresh cream in by hand with a whisk.