Pantry Zhuzh: Crème Fraîche

Written By Joe Flannery

Crème fraîche is something you likely don’t have in your kitchen but we really think you should. You very possibly have similar products to it, like buttermilk or yogurt or cheese. You may not always think of these products as fermented foods, but just like your kimchi or that loaf of sourdough, cultured dairy is a ferment. Like many other ferments crème fraîche is delicious because of the additional flavors and acidity that develop during its relatively short fermentation time. These fermented flavors and acid combined with its luxuriously high fat content gives crème fraîche a lovely balance and makes it the perfect upgrade in many applications that would otherwise call for buttermilk, yogurt or sour cream.

A great advantage of cremè fraîche is that you can make it yourself. It’s easy, cheap, and feels like a fun little science project. The procedure goes like any other fermentation: inoculate the food to be fermented with a bacterial culture, let it ferment at the appropriate temperature for the appropriate amount of time, and reap the tasty, tangy rewards. You can’t find live culinary cultures in your supermarket, so for this application we will use buttermilk to inoculate our cream. Buttermilk is fermented with and contains the microorganism Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. When we add a small quantity of buttermilk to cream, we are adding these live Lactobacillus Bulgaricus cultures as well. As long as their environment remains friendly to them, they will begin to consume the sugars in the cream, reproduce, and cause the fermentation that turns regular cream, into crème fraîche.

How to Make Crème Fraîche:

What you need:

1 quart heavy cream

1/2 cup cultured buttermilk

or

A ratio of 8 parts heavy cream to 1 part buttermilk

What you do:

Mix the heavy cream and buttermilk in a nonreactive container (one made of plastic or glass). Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and set in the warmest place in your house, like the inside of your turned off oven, on top of your refrigerator, or perhaps on your bedside table in your cozy bedroom. Check the crème fraîche after 24 hours. If it is noticeably thicker and tangier, good job! It’s done! If not, give it another 24 hours. Refrigerate. There you have it: a luxurious, acidic, thick cream.

Now that I have it, what do I do with it?

You can give any recipe that calls for yogurt or sour cream a major upgrade by substituting crème fraîche. Want to make the best ranch dressing ever? Mix half crème fraîche, half mayonnaise and add salt, chopped dill, parsley and chive. Mix with chopped boiled potatoes, dijon, onion and herbs for a perfect simple potato salad. How about some boujie chip dip? Stir black pepper, salt and minced shallot into crème fraîche and go to town on some kettle chips. We like this same combo on top of grilled oysters! My ultimate use for crème fraîche is between a latke and a healthy dollop of caviar. The cool, tangy cream balances the crispy fried potato and luscious brine of caviar in a way that can only be described as just right. It is a perfect combination of foods. You can even make crème fraîche sweet by whipping it with vanilla and sugar as you would heavy cream and topping everything from an apple to some simply cut berries.