Whipped cream frosting can be finicky, but with practice they are incredibly simple to make due to the minimal number of ingredients and the quick process. Keeping your cream and utensils cold is one thing that greatly helps your whipped cream to come out just right! These make great toppings for a variety of desserts. Enjoy on ice cream sundaes, cakes, cupcakes, strawberry shortcakes, floats…Basically anything that could use a little light and sweet topping!

What I love about these frostings are that they are light which balances the flavor of a rich cake very well. At the same time, they are also sweet enough to give the perfect finishing touch to a delectable dessert or an indulgent sweet treat without containing an outrageous amount of sugar. In fact, these frostings have a very minimal amount of natural sweetener in the form of maple syrup. You are free to add more or less of this sweetener according to your taste preferences.

Important tips:

• Keep everything cold! The bowl, the whisk, the cream…All of it. The way I like to do this is: shortly before I am planning to make the whipped cream, I will put the bowl of my stand mixer and the whisk into the freezer and allow it to chill. I then pull everything out right when I am ready to measure it out and make it.
• Watch it closely! When using only a cup of cream and keeping everything cold, the whipped cream whisks up fast. You do not want to walk away expecting it to take longer and end up with maple flavored butter!
• Whisk on a high speed. Anything in the range of 6-10 on a typical stand mixer should work well. However, the 10th setting may cause an abundance of splattering. I find that starting at 6 for a few seconds before it starts to stiffen, and then bumping it up to 8 until it is finished, helps to keep the splattering down, and is an adequate speed to get a great end result!
• Store in the refrigerator, and don’t allow it to sit out at room temperature for too long–even when frosting and/or serving. These frostings do not stand up well to heat.

Simple whipped cream frosting

This plain whipped cream frosting is super simple, and only involves two ingredients and a little practice.

Ingredients

1 cup of heavy whipping cream.
2 tablespoons of maple syrup

Steps

1. Ensure all of your ingredients, the bowl of the stand mixer, and the whisk are cold.
2. Combine the whipping cream with the mayple syrup in the bowl, and whisk on a high setting for 1-3 minutes. (You may need more, but probably not less, time.) Watch for stiff peaks in the whipped cream that do not droop.
3. Enjoy!

Chocolate whipped cream variation

Add one extra ingredient to this variation for a unique chocolatey result!

Ingredients

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of a cup of maple syrup
2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder

Steps

1. Ensure all of your ingredients, the bowl of the stand mixer, and the whisk are cold.
2. Combine the whipping cream with the mayple syrup and cocoa in the bowl, and whisk on a high setting for 1-3 minutes. Watch for stiff peaks in the whipped cream that do not droop.
3. Enjoy!

Chocolate whipped cream cheese variation

By adding cream cheese into these whipped cream frostings, they become more stable–meaning that the frosting will hold its shape and stand up to warmer temperatures slightly better. This makes the cream cheese variations great for frosting cakes and they can be more easily piped than the plain whipped cream frostings. They also end up having a very tangy flavor which is a hit for many people!

Please note they still must be refrigerated at every point aside from frosting and serving!

Ingredients

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons of maple syrup
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
4 ounces of cream cheese

Steps

1. Start with everything cold, and combine the cream cheese with the maple syrup and the cocoa powder in the stand mixer. Mix until fully combined.
2. While the stand mixer is running on speed 6 or higher, pour in the heavy cream, and whisk until the stiff peaks are formed (Not more than a minute or two).
3. Enjoy!

Plain whipped cream cheese variation

Finally, step up your regular whipped cream with a whipped cream cheese frosting. This gives great flavor that contrasts well with a variety of sweet desserts, and helps to stabilize the whipped cream as well.

Ingredients

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons of maple syrup
4 ounces of cream cheese

Steps

1. Start with everything cold, and combine the cream cheese with the maple syrup in the stand mixer, and mix until fully combined.
2. Then pour the whipping cream over the cream cheese mixture while the stand mixer is running on the speed 6 or higher.
3. Watch it closely to see when it is getting stiff peaks which hold their shape, this should only take 30 seconds or a maximum of a minute or two, especially if everything is cold!
4. Enjoy!

I hope that this post has been helpful, and has inspired you to experiment in your kitchen! Leave a comment and share this recipe if you enjoyed seeing some simple ways to “whip up” a delicious frosting right in your kitchen!