Fresh cream or whipped topping: what is on your cake

One of the most common worries we hear is that cream cakes are “all chemicals”. It comes from a real difference that most people are never told about: many cakes sold as cream cakes are not covered in cream at all.

Most bakeries use non-dairy whipped topping, made from vegetable fat, sugar and stabilisers. It is cheap, holds its shape in heat for hours and is easy to pipe. It also tastes sweet and leaves a slightly waxy coating in the mouth. Real dairy whipping cream, with about 35 per cent milk fat, tastes cleaner and lighter, but it softens quickly at room temperature and costs roughly three times as much.

You can usually tell them apart. Dairy cream melts on the tongue within a second or two and tastes of milk. Topping lingers and tastes mainly of sugar and vanilla essence. If a cream cake can sit on a counter for half a day in Coimbatore without drooping, it is almost certainly topping.

We use dairy whipping cream on every cream cake, stabilised with a little mascarpone so it holds through delivery. That is why our cream cakes must stay in the fridge and should be eaten within two days, and why we ask you to keep them cool before cutting. For outdoor parties or long journeys, we suggest a buttercream or ganache finish instead, which handles heat better. We would rather tell you this at the ordering stage than have a cream cake slide at your party.