People often get confused in trying to understand the differences between whipped cream vs heavy cream. While you may think they are the same, they are actually different. Whipped cream is any type of cream – be it heavy or light cream that has been beaten with a whisk, an electric mixer, or a beater to become fluffy and thicker.
Heavy cream is any cream gotten from skimming of milk that has a high-fat content of more than 35 percent. The percentage of fats to determine whether a cream is light or heavy varies with different countries. But the major difference is that heavy cream has a higher fat content than light.
Comparing Whipped cream vs Heavy cream
Whipped cream is the end product of using heavy cream, light cream, or any type of cream. You make use of heavy cream or simply cream and beat it up (whip) into whipped cream. Heavy cream is the cream gotten from fresh milk after skimming the milk; it is high in fat content. The fact that it is called heavy cream does not mean the weight is heavy but rather the heavy refers to the amount of fat in it. It is heavy when it has a high amount of fats (about 35% or more) compared to the lighter counterpart.
The cream that is skimmed from fresh milk is simply called cream or whipping cream irrespective of its fat content. Therefore cream that has not been whipped goes by different names depending on the amount of fat in it; you could have some people calling it cream, whipping cream, light cream, and heavy cream. The moment you call it whipped cream, it means you have beaten it to become fluffy.
When you whip cream or heavy cream, it becomes thick and you have whipped cream.