The Creamy And Convenient Coffee Addition With A Better Shelf Life Than Fresh Heavy Cream

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The world of preserved food and drinks is full of wonder. Think about how scientifically cool it is that human beings invented spray drying, which literally phase shifts matter from liquid to solid in order to generate a shelf-stable product. Liquids that should be perishable, turned solid to far outlive their fresh versions. Instant coffee and juice powder are some of the most famous examples, but powdered heavy cream is one that's often skipped over. However, it's an affordable and effective way to get creamy cups of coffee from a product with an extended shelf life.

Heavy cream powder is made from spray-dried heavy cream, and it lasts much longer than fresh heavy cream. On the fortunate side of things, because of its high fat content, fresh heavy cream does last longer than you might give it credit for. Most home cooks know that with proper storage, it can last up to a month. (If it smells bad, chuck it.) That's not shabby. But, considering that high-end heavy creams go for nearly $6 a pint, heavy cream powder, which has a shelf life of one year, wins out economically, too. At 1 pound of powder, a $20 container from a Hoosier Hill Farm dairy nets you about 38 reconstituted pints. If you do the math that way, that's a lot of cups of coffee.

Heavy cream powder has a high level of butterfat content, which hovers around the low 70 percents. Heavy cream powder is nice because, apart from being better economically, requiring less single-use packaging, and lasting longer than its fresh form, it also has so many different uses. Among its functions as a coffee creamer, you can make use of heavy cream powder in ice cream; it has also demonstrated success with yogurt, soups, and sauces, and it even adds creaminess to milk chocolate. That said, for most of these uses, one needs to avoid the most common pitfall of heavy cream powder, which is thinking of it as an instant product.

A pinch of heavy cream powder in your coffee isn't going to taste as smooth as you'd like. Instead, it needs to be reconstituted in cold water before adding it. Once the fat and water have bonded (Hoosier Hill Farm brand suggests allowing it to refrigerate overnight), you can use it in your coffee as you would creamer. That said, some brands, like Laird Superfood Creamers, promise a product that should dissolve right into your hot bevvie, and even include adaptogens like reishi mushrooms or vanilla flavoring. That said, the success of diffusing chunks does vary.