Creme Fraiche

Excellent Ingredient of the Week
Basically crème fraiche is a soured cream containing about 28% butterfat. It is soured with bacterial culture, but is less sour than American sour cream. Originally a French product, it is available everywhere now. It is traditional to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. It can be made at home by adding a small amount of cultured buttermilk or sour cream to heavy cream, and allowing it to stand for several hours at room temperature until the bacterial cultures act on the cream.

homemade crème fraiche

Ingredients
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons buttermilk

Procedure
Combine 1 cup whipping cream and 2 tablespoons buttermilk in a glass container. Cover and let stand at room temperature (about 70°F) from 8 to 24 hours, or until very thick. Stir well before covering and refrigerate up to 10 days.

So what do you do with it? Crème fraiche is particularly useful in finishing sauces in French cooking because it does not curdle. However, "light" crème fraiche with a low fat content curdles when heated.

Use creme fraiche in a non traditional version Pasta carbonara. Cook off some nice bacon in a pan and then add garlic til soft. Meanwhile, boil the pasta and throw in some greens to the pasta water at the last moment to wilt. Drain pasta and greens, add to pan and then put in a few dollops of creme fraiche. Stir, plate and serve.

Fold creme fraiche into custard, then chill and top with raspberries and sugar and briefly broil the sugar to form a brulee like crust. Fold some into your mac and cheese. Just mix it with banana slices or strawberries and eat it
Add some to your salad dressing to make a creamy vinegrette.

Crème Fraiche Ice Cream and Cantaloupe Cider Sorbet

The Altitude Adjustment Section
In my quest not to turn on the oven before it cools off today, I offer for your enjoyment two frozen treats.

Crème Fraiche Ice Cream

Ingredients
1/2 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch salt
4 large egg yolks
1 cup crème Fraiche
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Procedure
Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod with the tip of your knife into a heavy saucepan. Add cream sugar and salt and bring just to the boil, stirring till sugar is dissolved, then remove from heat. In a bowl, whisk egg yolks until smooth then temper with a little hot cream and then add the rest slowly while stirring. Now return to the heat and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, till mixture thickens, about 3 minutes. A thermometer should read 170-175 — this takes out the guesswork! Immediately pour mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a metal bowl and place this bowl over a larger bowl filled with ice. Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Remove custard from ice bath and stir in Crème Fraiche and lemon juice and mix till smooth. Now put into your ice cream freezer and process as usual. Let harden in freezer at least 4 hours before serving. This ice cream will keep 1 week in the freezer.

Cantaloupe Cider Sorbet

Ingredients
4 cups cantaloupe puree
(that’s about 1 1/2 cantaloupes, skinned, seeded, and put in food processor)
1/2 cup sugar
Grated zest of 3 limes
5 teaspoons (2 envelopes) powdered gelatin
1 1/2 cups apple cider

Procedure
Combine the melon, sugar, and lime zest in a bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar. Soften the gelatin in the cold apple cider for 5 minutes, and then heat to over low heat in a small saucepan to dissolve. Stir into the cantaloupe mixture. Now transfer to your ice cream maker and freeze as usual. If you have the small freezer variety as I do, the recipe will have to be processed in two batches.