Is butter the same as cream? Are they the same thing? What is the difference between cream and butter?

As we all know, cake is a popular dessert. It is made with a variety of raw materials. Some people use cream, some use butter, and some use other materials. So are butter and cream in cake the same thing? Let's take a closer look!

Is butter the same as cream?

It's not the same thing.

Cream is mostly a yellow or white semi-solid food extracted from cow's milk and goat's milk. After the milk is processed, the fat density in it is the lowest and it will float to the top of the milk. This layer is the cream. Cream is mostly used in desserts, mostly cakes.

Butter is translated from English. Many places translate animal butter into butter, such as Hong Kong and other regions, which is more common.

However, in China, beef tallow is the fat of cattle, usually the oil extracted from loin oil after boiling and processing. It is solid at room temperature and is mostly used in making dishes. For Sichuan red soup hot pot, beef tallow is the most important ingredient.

What is the difference between cream and butter?

1. Butter is translated as butter

There are two major categories of butter: vegetable butter and animal butter. Although both are called "butter", the ingredients are completely different. Let's take a look at the English names of the two: vegetable butter is called "margarine", which is also transliterated as "Maggie Lin" or "Maggie Lin". Animal butter is called "butter", which is translated as "cream" in Japan and Taiwan, "bean oil" in Hong Kong, and "buttermilk" in some places.

Animal butter is made from milk. It is actually a thin layer of fat on the surface of dairy products. It contains about 80% milk fat, as well as water, some milk protein, trace elements, etc.

Therefore, translating it as "cream" or "butter" makes sense.

2. Cream

There are two types of cream: animal cream and vegetable cream. Similarly, animal cream is extracted from milk, and its fat content is between 18% and 40%, and the most common is between 35% and 38%. The English name is "cream", which can also be translated as "light cream", "thin cream" or "whipped cream". It is a thick liquid before being whipped, and can be used for cake icing and decoration after being whipped. This is the cream on the outside of the cake as mentioned in your question.

Vegetable cream has nothing to do with milk. It is made from vegetable oil, water, corn syrup, etc. through chemical reactions. It can also be whipped and used to decorate cakes. Vegetable cream often has a sweet taste and is called "topping" in English.

The color difference between animal butter and vegetable butter: animal butter is milky white with a yellowish tint, while vegetable butter is snow-white.

Summarize:

Cream and butter are both extracted from milk, but they have different fat content, different forms, and different uses. When we distinguish between them, it is best to look at the English on the packaging. The translation may be ambiguous, but the English is not ambiguous.

Besides cream and butter, what else can be used to make cakes?

Cream cheese and cottage cheese.

These two are mentioned together because they are both a type of cheese. Their English names are both "cheese". It's just that their water content is different and their production processes are also slightly different, so they appear in different forms. Cream cheese is called "cream cheese", it has a soft texture, white color, a slight lactic acid taste, and a water content of about 45%-55%. It is most commonly used to make cheesecake.

Some hard cheeses are actually also called "cheese", but they have different uses due to different water content.

Let's talk about mozzarella cheese. Because its production process is different from that of cheese, it will melt and stretch into long strings at high temperatures. The most common way to use mozzarella cheese is to sprinkle it on the surface of pizza. It can also be used to make baked foods such as baked rice and baked mashed potatoes.

There is another common type of cream cheese, called Mascarpone cheese, which is one of the indispensable ingredients for making tiramisu. In fact, mascarpone is strictly speaking a type of clotted cream, not a traditional cheese, and its texture is softer.