I have a new recipe that says I need table cream, sour cream and grated cheese. I have never heard of table cream and don't know what I can use instead. This is for a topping that goes over fish in the oven.
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Table cream appears to be an ingredient from Mexican cuisine, also known as media crema. Nestle offers cans of it in the US.
This is what the website of Target says about it:
Nestle Media Crema Table Cream adds a special touch to all your sweet and savory recipes. Use it to cook, bake or top your favorite recipes and dishes. It has a neutral flavor that will allow you to enhance the flavor of all your creamy recipes. Nestle Media Crema offers you a double consistency: liquid at room temperature or thicker if you refrigerate it. Add Mexican crema in your pasta, tacos, stews, soups and sauces, or top fruits and desserts with the light cream for a tasty treat. Each can contains 7.6 ounces of shelf stable cream. Refrigerate after opening.
The BCDC has a comparison of various milk products that includes table cream:
Coffee cream, or table cream - contains 18% milk fat.
A more extensive description of the product and it’s use cases can be found at Nestle’s website.
For your recipe, you are probably fine if you
- mix half and half with regular cream in roughly equal amounts or
- add about a quarter of milk to regular cream.
Stephie
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4I don’t think Mexican table cream and Canadian table cream are the same thing. Mexican crema is a thick, sour product, more like crème fraîche – Joe Dec 07 '23 at 13:37
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It’s not going to be possible to answer this question without knowing what the origin of the recipe is.
‘Table cream’ is a dairy product that’s put on the table for people to add as they deem fit. But there are at least three cultures that have products with this name:
In the UK and Canada, it’s a 15-18% fat cream, for you to add to your coffee. Half-and-half might work in a pinch for Americans (about 12% fat), or you can try to mix heavy cream with other dairy to try to approximate the correct balance
In Mexico, there are two forms of ‘crema’ one of which translates to ‘table cream’. This is a soured milk product. (The other being a thicker product used in cooking). Crema is higher in fat than American cultured buttermilk (about 30% vs 20%), salted, and may have a little bit of lime juice added. The higher fat means that it’s less likely to curdle when added to hot foods.
Joe
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1Correct, in Canada you can get cartons of "heavy cream" 18% fat. Half-and-half refers to mixing it with 2% milk to get a 10% product. That's what goes in coffee. Table cream can't be whipped (that needs 35%) but is good in sauces. I guess you could mix whipping cream with 1% or 2% 50-50 to get something close to what you need. (If, in fact, it's the Canadian table cream you need.) – Kate Gregory Dec 21 '23 at 17:02
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I don’t know either but I bought some and the description does NOT match what is being said of it. It seems more like butter than cream. I am still confused. The stuff I bought is a soft paste or gel, a bit like artist’s oil paint in the fridge, but at room temperature it isn’t much lighter. Some, but it doesn’t flow and it forms peaks. A bit like cheap acrylic artists paint. Still more “something that should come out of a tube” than what I think of as cream. It seems heavier than heavy whipping cream, and tastes like unsalted butter. I have no idea what to do with it. I bought it out of curiosity, and the assumption that it would be lighter than what I am familiar with for fat reduction. This seems like it has MORE fat not less fat. If it DOES have less fat it wins. It seems to make a fair butter substitute on bread. It does not seem like it would go well in coffee. Too thick. You can actually spread the stuff with a knife, which I have never seen heavy whipping cream do.
Matt
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1Do you know what origin of the recipe was? Canada and the UK both have something called ‘table cream’ which is the cream that you’d have on the table for adding to coffee… which is about 15-18% fat (heavier than half-and-half, but not as high fat as heavy cream). If you’re ever dealing with recipes that might be foreign, see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/784/67 – Joe Dec 07 '23 at 13:33
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2To those flagging as not an answer: the author may not know exactly what it is, but they did buy some and describe it, so I'd call this an answer. – Cascabel Dec 07 '23 at 18:04
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@Cascabel agreed. It as much an answer as when people ask how to do something and people respond that there’s no way to do it – Joe Dec 07 '23 at 18:33
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Doesn't the package tell the fat content? Might be good for comparison to know the nonfat solids (ie. mainly protein) content too. – ariola Dec 11 '23 at 13:00
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It lists as being only 5% total fat which strikes me as extremely low. The totals are nowhere near 100% though which leaves me confused. The ingredients seem to be more or less light cream, carrageenan, and sodium alginate. So light cream with thickeners to make it seem like soft butter? – Matt Dec 21 '23 at 15:10
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As far as thickness goes It seems to go half and half, evaporated milk, whipping cream, condensed milk, this stuff, and then butter. It acts a lot like whipped butter. If the stuff is really only 5% fat, salting and coloring it would make a kicking butter substitute for toast. – Matt Dec 21 '23 at 15:22
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@Matt it seems you bought some imitation product, probably intended as a low-calorie substitute. The totals don't have to be 100%, not everything in food is a digestible carb, fat or protein (although most of the rest is likely water). The sodium alginate is what makes the gel-like texture. The carrageenan is a good emulsifier for dairy, but doesn't thicken it much on its own, although it does make for a stabler foam after whipping. – rumtscho Dec 21 '23 at 20:35
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If I did buy a fake nestle will be pissed because it looks EXACTLY like the pic and I bought it at a grocery store chain – Matt Dec 22 '23 at 03:02
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Ooh I forgot buttermilk. That would go between whipping cream and this stuff. It’s thicker than that too. I don’t think it’s a sour milk thing though because it doesn’t have that buttermilk tang. – Matt Dec 22 '23 at 04:19