Creme Fraiche – Homemade

Creme Fraiche Made at Home and Why You Would Want to

You definitely want to make some Creme Fraiche at home, and I’ll tell you why. In fact, I have a list of great reasons. It’s so rich. So tangy. So decadent. SO delicious!

And so unbelievably freakin’ expensive if you buy it in the store.

How expensive is it?

When I checked prices this week, it was nearly $7.00 for an 8 ounce tub. What the heck? Don’t you find that there are just so many overpriced things in the store? I think it’s nearly criminal what people pay for hummus. [hint – you can make it a lot cheaper] I think many times, people don’t realize how many common, but pricey things you can make right at home, and for far less money.

We’re going to fix that expensive part today

When I price out the ingredients for my method, at the local, more expensive grocery store, it’s about $1.60 for 8 ounces.  Even less, if you buy heavy cream at one of the big box stores.  At that price, you can make it an everyday thing. And while right now, Creme Fraiche isn’t an everyday thing here in the US, it ought to be.  It’s the French counterpart to sour cream.  Now, I love sour cream. But there are some advantages to using Creme Fraiche instead. The first is the flavor.  Creme Fraiche is nicely tangy, but a bit lighter than sour cream. It is also really creamy.

Higher fat content means no curdling

Creme Fraiche has a higher fat content, which makes it great for thickening soup, stew or a sauce. The higher fat content prevents curdling, which can happen when you mix either sour cream or yogurt into a hot sauce, or anything with tomatoes in it.

After we get done talking about how to make, it, I have a lot of great suggestions for using it, so stick around.

Gather your ingredients

Your two ingredients. Yup – it just takes two ingredients to make Creme Fraiche.  Heavy cream and cultured buttermilk. Two ingredients and somewhere between 24 and 36 hours, depending on how warm a place you put it, and how thick you want it to be.

The method could not be any more simple – you stir the heavy cream and buttermilk together in a container of some kind, cover it, and leave it sitting at room temperature for a minimum of 24 hours, up to 36 to 40 hours. I like to use canning jars for this. They don’t take up much room on the counter. You can leave the lid not quite screwed down to allow for any gas that might escape, which it probably won’t.

Stir it if you remember

You can open the jar a few times and give it a stir, but it’s not a big deal if you forget. The ambient temperature in your kitchen is going to have a large bearing on the timing. We keep our house pretty cool, so I sped things up a bit. I filled a 3-quart bowl halfway with 100° water and set the jar in it. You can do the same to speed things up, but don’t use water hotter than 100°, or it might kill the culturing. You can switch the hot water out every so often.  I don’t find any difference in quality when I speed it up, so don’t worry about that.

Check after 24 hours

After 24 hours, open the jar and use a clean spoon to stir the mixture. Taste it to see if you like it at this point. I’m never happy with it after just 24 hours, and usually leave it for 36 hours. It should be very thick, and have a mildly tart flavor.

How to use Creme Fraiche

If you have had Creme Fraiche before, you probably don’t need me to tell you the best ways to use it.  But just in case, here are my favorite things to make with it.

Use it in place of the sour cream in this Chicken Stroganoff. Perfect to add some extra creaminess to Zucchini Soup [though it won’t be vegan anymore, of course].  Remember – it won’t curdle in a hot dish the way sour cream might. It adds extra tang and luxury to Vanilla Bean Ice Cream – just sub it in for 1/2 cup of the cream. Make this Cucumber Salad creamy by adding 1/3 of a cup to the vinaigrette. Swirl a little honey or maple syrup into some Creme Fraiche and use it to top something like Maple Walnut Rhubarb Crisp or Clementine Crunch Cake. This is one time when you can honestly say that the possibilities are endless.

Want to go super-simple?  How about a bowl of strawberries?

How long will Creme Fraiche stay fresh?

At the earliest, Creme Fraiche will be good for as long as the “use by” dates on the heavy cream and buttermilk. Those both usually have pretty long freshness dates, but in general I would say about 10 days in the refrigerator.  Of course, you want to use common sense and if anything looks or smells off, don’t use it. I never have to worry about it going bad here, because we use it up pretty quickly. My guess is that once you try it, you’re going to find a million ways to use it up quickly. You’ll probably have more trouble keeping enough around, but you can double or triple the recipe if you need to.