Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

Crème fraîche is a couple fancy-sounding French words that translate to “fresh cream.” Does that mean you can just use cream fresh from your supermarket shelves whenever a recipe calls for crème fraîche? No, because what the French call fresh cream is closer to what we call sour cream—it’s a cultured dairy product. Crème fraîche is a little acidic with a whole lot of body, something you scoop and dollop rather than pour.Making crème fraîche is relatively straightforward: Introduce Lactobacillus bacteria cultures to fresh cream, either by adding yogurt, buttermilk, or some other source of live bacteria cultures, and let them thrive. As they do their thing, eating up sugars in the cream, they’ll produce lactic acid, which transforms the cream into a thick and tangy cultured cream, leaving behind the solution of milk proteins and water known as whey. Spoon off the cream, reserve the whey for some other use, and that’s it.For this recipe, I wanted to come up with a consistent and reliable method for producing a high yield of crème fraîche from a given quantity of cream, with no “off” flavors. I also wanted to use buttermilk and yogurt, rather than some special culture designed specifically to make crème fraîche. While the specially designed crème fraîche culture will produce a 100 percent yield with no whey, you can achieve a pretty high yield with ingredients you can buy at the store, and there’s a whole lot of <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/whey-braised-onions">tasty things you can do with whey</a>!During multiple trials, I used a bunch of different creams and bacteria starter cultures, fermented in various containers and temperatures. The main rules you should follow to make a great-tasting crème fraîche with no “off” flavors are as follows: Start with good products, use clean utensils and containers, and be patient.The success of this recipe also depends on finding a place for the cream to ferment. You want a warm and dark spot—neither too hot nor too cold, at or a little above [f 68]—with very little variation in temperature. The bacteria dislike light and have a Goldilocks attitude to temperature. If it’s too cold, the fermentation process will be slow, since the Lactobacilli you want thriving in the cream are mesophilic, or heat-loving, and they like temperatures between [f 68] and [f 113]. You can use a sous vide or bread-proofing setup to ensure that you’ve got the mixture at the right temperature, but in my trials, I found room temperature to be just fine. As a rule, lower temperature with longer fermentation times produces the most complex, most balanced flavors.Some recipes call for giving the bacteria a head start by introducing them to warm cream, but I found that unnecessary; more than that, I also found that crème fraîche made with a warm start isn’t as tasty as the stuff I made just by mixing in the culture and letting it ferment.

Once you’ve made it, you’ll find it endlessly useful: Dollop it on a pie or pancakes and waffles, add a couple spoonfuls to finish soups and sauce, or make some <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/creme-fraiche-ice-cream">ice cream</a> with it.

Crème Fraîche