Recipes with heavy cream

Prep 15min Cook 10min 4 servings

Panna Cotta

With 400ml of cream to only 120ml of milk, this panna cotta still trembles when nudged with a spoon after it sets, and melts almost as soon as it is in your mouth. The stove work takes a few minutes; the rest is at least four hours of waiting in the fridge. Thinly sliced strawberries go on top.

Prep 15min Cook 20min 2 servings

Myeongran Lemon Cream Fettuccine

Myeongran lemon cream fettuccine wraps wide pasta ribbons in a sauce made from salted pollock roe, heavy cream, butter, and lemon zest. The small eggs of the roe are left intact and stirred into the sauce off the heat so they stay soft and burst with briny flavor when bitten rather than turning granular or hard. Garlic bloomed in butter forms the aromatic base, and a mixture of heavy cream with milk tempers the roe's saltiness into a smooth, balanced coating. Using lemon zest rather than juice adds a bright citrus fragrance without diluting the sauce or introducing acidity that would curdle the cream. Parmigiano-Reggiano deepens the savory foundation, and fettuccine's broad, flat surface holds the thick cream more effectively than thinner pasta shapes. The entire dish takes about twenty minutes from start to plate, making it a practical weeknight option that does not sacrifice depth of flavor for speed. The critical technique -- incorporating the roe off the heat -- keeps the texture creamy throughout and prevents the eggs from cooking into tough, unpleasant morsels.

Baking Hard

Chocolate Eclairs

French pastry shops usually fill eclairs with vanilla custard; this version uses whipped cream and tops the long choux shells with melted dark chocolate. With a plain cream filling, the bitter chocolate and the crisp shell come through more clearly. The eggs are beaten in one at a time, stopping once the paste looks glossy and drops slowly from the spatula.

Prep 40min Cook 35min 12 servings

Prep 15min Cook 10min 4 servings

Vanilla Panna Cotta

Set with powdered gelatin, this vanilla panna cotta holds its shape when turned out onto a plate while the center still shivers. The sugar is kept modest, so vanilla and dairy come through clean. To unmold, only the base of each cup goes briefly into warm water rather than warming the whole thing.

Prep 10min Cook 12min 2 servings

Pasta al Limone (Italian Lemon Butter Cream Pasta)

Finely grated yellow zest melts into warm butter and carries the lemon scent through the whole sauce. The grater stays shallow, since the white pith underneath adds bitterness. The small amount of cream is only warmed until bubbles show at the edge, because a hard boil splits it. Starchy pasta water, added a little at a time with the Parmesan, emulsifies everything into a sauce that coats the linguine smoothly, and the plates go out before it tightens. With little more than lemon, butter, cream and Parmesan, this southern Italian pasta comes together in about 20 minutes, an easy weeknight dinner.

Prep 30min Cook 45min 4 servings

Flan Parisien (Parisian Vanilla Custard Tart)

The vanilla custard is thickened with cornstarch on the stove before it goes into the pastry, so once the tart is baked and chilled it slices into clean, upright wedges. In Paris bakeries it sits in the case by the slice, its top freckled with caramel-brown spots.

Desserts Medium

Pecan Pralines

Beating the syrup after it leaves the heat is deliberate: it turns glossy candy opaque and gives pralines a slightly crumbly bite instead of a chewy caramel one. Cream and brown sugar hide the color cues of a clear syrup, so a candy thermometer, its tip clear of the pan base, decides when to stop at 116°C.

Prep 45min Cook 25min 12 servings

Prep 10min Cook 18min 2 servings

Penne alla Vodka

Two tablespoons of vodka bubble for about a minute, long enough to soften the harsh alcohol smell but not so long that the aroma disappears. The tomato puree reduces until its color deepens before any cream goes in, and from that point the pan stays at its lowest heat so the sauce never boils and splits. The finished sauce should slip into the hollow centers of the penne as well as cling to the outside.

Baking Easy

Florentine Cookies (Caramel Almond Lace with Chocolate)

Sliced almonds go into a caramel cooked from cream, sugar, honey and butter, and small spoonfuls of it bubble up again in the oven and spread into thin amber rounds studded with nuts. Once cool they set hard as glass, snapping cleanly before the caramel turns a little chewy. The backs get a thin coat of melted dark chocolate.

Prep 20min Cook 18min 4 servings

Prep 10min Cook 35min 4 servings

Rice Pudding

Rice simmered slowly in milk swells and sheds its starch into the liquid, leaving a pudding somewhere between porridge and custard. Served warm, it is loose and spoonable; chilled overnight, it firms into something denser and closer to a set custard. Cinnamon goes on at the last moment so its aroma arrives before the first bite.

Prep 15min Cook 25min 2 servings

Roasted Pumpkin Alfredo Fettuccine

Roasting the kabocha squash until its edges brown concentrates its sweetness, and once blended it thickens the sauce without any flour. Even with cream and Parmigiano, the sauce stays a bright orange, with nutmeg rounding out the squash flavor. The squash can be roasted a day ahead, and butternut squash works in its place.

Prep 30min Cook 45min 4 servings

Injeolmi Crumble Cheesecake

Sweet rice flour in a dense cheesecake batter gives it a faint mochi-like chew. Only part of the roasted soybean powder, the coating on injeolmi rice cakes, goes into the batter; the rest is rubbed with melted butter into a crumble that bakes crisp on top, putting the nutty flavor in two separate layers. After a full day in the fridge, the soybean aroma comes through more clearly.

Mugwort Tiramisu (Korean Herbal Twist on Italian Classic)

Mugwort powder folded into mascarpone tints the cream pale green and gives it an earthy, slightly medicinal herbal note under the espresso. This version skips eggs entirely and lightens the mascarpone with whipped cream instead, so there is no yolk-and-sugar whisking step.

Prep 25min 0 4 servings

Prep 15min Cook 20min 2 servings

Shrimp Alfredo Pasta

Searing the shrimp first, lifting them out and returning them only at the end keeps them tender instead of simmering in cream. The garlic and cream sauce is made in the same pan, and the sweetness of the shrimp lightens the rich Parmesan and cream.

Baking Easy

Injeolmi Scone (Soybean Powder & Rice Cake Scone)

The rice cake is optional. Small pieces of it soften in the oven into chewy pockets, but even without them, the toasted soybean powder in the dough carries the injeolmi flavor all the way through, with a warm, nutty smell plain-flour scones lack.

Prep 20min Cook 22min 4 servings

Prep 12min Cook 22min 2 servings

Spicy Octopus Rose Penne (Octopus Penne in Rose Sauce)

Pre-cooked octopus is patted dry and seared hard over high heat so the outside turns chewy, then tossed with penne in a tomato cream sauce warmed up with gochugaru (Korean chili flakes). The sauce fills the tubes of the penne, so every forkful with a piece of octopus brings plenty of it along.

Baking Easy

Key Lime Pie

There is no gelatin in the filling; egg yolks react with the lime's acid and set it to a smooth, custard-like slice. The oven only firms the edges in a short bake, and the fridge does the rest over at least 3 hours, ideally a full day. This Southern American pie was originally made with Florida's small, fragrant key limes.

Prep 20min Cook 18min 4 servings

Prep 10min Cook 15min 2 servings

Truffle Cream Pasta

Butter, garlic, cream, and Parmesan make up the whole sauce, and the truffle aroma comes entirely from oil stirred in after the heat is off. The garlic warms in butter over low heat and stops before it browns, since browned garlic leaves a harsh edge in the cream. The cream simmers for only about two minutes, until a spatula leaves a brief trail; reduced further, it turns too heavy to coat the fettuccine thinly. Parmesan melts in over lowered heat with steady stirring so it does not clump. Plates go to the table straight from the pan, because the sauce keeps tightening and the truffle scent fades as it cools.

Prep 25min Cook 40min 4 servings

Kimchi Bacon Quiche (Fermented Kimchi Egg Custard Pie)

Well-fermented kimchi and bacon baked into an egg and cream custard show up as flecks of red kimchi and bacon across every cut slice. The kimchi is squeezed hard and fried with the bacon and onion before it goes in, which keeps the custard from turning watery.

Prep 15min Cook 18min 2 servings

Truffle Mushroom Tagliatelle

Button mushrooms spread out in a wide pan over high heat give up their liquid and then brown, and that concentrated moisture becomes the savory base before the cream is added. If liquid pools in the pan, a brief pause in stirring lets the bottom dry and the browning start. Before the mushrooms, shallot cooks for about a minute to bring out its sweetness, while garlic gets only a brief turn until fragrant so it stays mellow in the rich cream. The broad, flat tagliatelle ribbons hold a thick sauce well. A small drizzle of truffle oil at the end adds an earthy aroma without taking over the mushrooms.

At least 1 hr 35 min 4 servings

Lemon Curd Tart

Lemon juice, egg yolks, and sugar are stirred over low heat into a curd, poured into a baked shortcrust shell, and chilled until set. The curd comes off the heat before it boils, once a line drawn through the thin coat on the spatula holds, and cream stirred in afterward, then a pass through a sieve, leaves it silky. Only the yellow outer peel is zested; the white pith underneath tastes bitter.

Baking Hard

Korean Mammoth Bread

Two flat loaves are baked separately, one filled with sweet red bean paste and one with sweet green pea paste, then stacked with whipped cream and strawberry jam between them. Cut through, it shows red bean, pea, cream, and jam in layers. The cream goes on only after both loaves have cooled right through; on warm bread it melts and runs off the edges.

Prep 60min Cook 25min 4 servings