Easy Creme Fraiche Recipe

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure for details.

Hi Bold Bakers!

WHY YOU’LL LOVE THIS RECIPE: My affordable Easy Creme Fraiche Recipe is a genius way to whip up scrumptious, versatile crème fraîche! This super-simple recipe is pure kitchen magic.

• Irresistible flavor and texture: Sumptuously thick, perfectly tangy.
• Thrifty hack: My recipe gives you superior crème fraîche that’s less than half the cost of store-bought!
• Minimal ingredients: You need just two basic ingredients.
• Couldn’t be easier! Five-minute prep, then it’s totally hands-off.
• Your new secret ingredient: You’ll use your crème fraîche in everything from desserts to salad dressing.

The first time you have creme fraiche, it’s a real a-ha moment. The name might sound fancy, but it’s basically a delicious, thick, spoonable cream with a mildly tangy flavor. Its uses are endless—it’s fabulous on top of waffles, pies, cobblers, and flourless chocolate cake, or serve it as a dip with potato chips and veggies, or stir some into a soup or sauces to make it extra creamy. Make a batch, and you’ll wonder how you lived without it!

This Easy Crème Fraîche Recipe took a little extra testing, but the results were so worth it! Because fermentation takes time, I had to wait days to see if each batch turned out just right. If it wasn’t thick and creamy enough, I had to tweak and start over. I chose plain yogurt as the culturing agent since most people have it on hand, but I also found that cultured buttermilk works beautifully. Some recipes claim crème fraîche thickens in just 12 to 24 hours, but I found that letting it rest for a full 48 hours is the key to achieving the rich, luscious texture of store-bought versions. You may also see recipes that call for heating the cream first to encourage bacterial activity. While this might sound helpful, I didn’t find it necessary—room-temperature fermentation works just fine! However, if your kitchen runs cold, slightly warming the cream can give the process a little boost. Either way, this recipe is practically effortless—just mix, let time do the work, and enjoy your homemade crème fraîche!

Table of Contents

• What is Easy Crème Fraîche
• Tools You Need
• Key Ingredients and Why
• How to Make Easy Crème Fraîche Recipe
• Gemma’s Pro Chef Tips
• Make Ahead and Storage Instructions
• FAQs
• More Homemade Basic Recipes  

What is Easy Creme Fraiche?

• Easy Crème Fraîche (pronounced krem fresh) is a cultured cream or a cream that’s been fermented. It has a mildly tangy flavor, and because it has a high-fat content, crème fraîche has a thick, velvety consistency.
• Because most cream available today is pasteurized, yogurt, which contains natural bacteria, is added to the cream to ferment it.
• Crème fraîche vs sour cream: Crème fraîche has a slightly milder flavor (less tang) than sour cream. It’s also thicker than sour cream, and unlike most sour cream, it’s naturally thickened without gums or other additives.
• Crème fraîche vs whipped cream: Creme fraiche is thick and lush, unlike light and fluffy whipped cream. While whipped cream is often lightly sweetened, crème fraiche is tangy.
• Crème fraîche originated in the French region of Normandy, famous for its dairy farms. Before refrigeration, some dairy was left to ferment naturally, and the resulting thickened, tangy cream was used in baking and cooking. It became a key ingredient in French cuisine.

Tools You Need

• Mixing bowl
• Measuring spoons
• Kitchen scale (optional)
• Whisk
• Medium glass jar with lid

Key Ingredients and Why

Heavy cream

• Heavy cream is fresh full-fat cream from cows with 35 to 38% fat.
• Pasteurized cream is fine to use in this recipe, but do not use ultra-pasteurized cream.
  • Ultra-pasteurized cream is thinner, which will adversely affect the texture of the crème fraîche.

Plain yogurt

• Use plain, full-fat, regular yogurt. This is the better choice for this recipe, as Greek yogurt or other strained yogurts are very thick and more strongly flavored, resulting in crème fraîche that’s not as silky, smooth, and mildly tangy as you want.
• Pasteurized yogurt works in this recipe, but do not use ultra-pasteurized yogurt. Ultra-pasteurization kills the active bacteria, making fermentation unreliable and slower.
• Substituion: You can use cultured buttermilk (not buttermilk substitute) instead of plain yogurt.

How to Make Easy Creme Fraiche Recipe

Mix the ingredients

1. Combine ingredients: Whisk the heavy cream and yogurt (or buttermilk) together in a medium bowl.

Set aside to thicken

2. Let the mixture sit: Pour the mix into a medium glass jar and tighten the lid. Allow the jar to sit at room temperature for about 48 hours or until thick.

3. Refrigerate: Once thickened to the desired texture, place in the fridge until needed. Store in the refrigerator for up to seven days. Use in both sweet and savory cooking.

Gemma’s Pro Chef Tips

• Correct container: Use a container made with non-reactive material. (Use glass, not metal.)
• The right ingredients: When choosing ingredients, try to find pasteurized (as opposed to ultra-pasteurized) heavy cream and yogurt or buttermilk.
• Mixture tips: The cream-to-yogurt (or buttermilk) ratio doesn’t matter all that much. If you add more yogurt or buttermilk, you’ll need less time for the cream to thicken (but the mixture will be less creamy). Add less yogurt or buttermilk, and it will take longer to thicken but taste better. We found one tablespoon of yogurt or buttermilk per cup of cream (that’s a 1:16 ratio) strikes the best balance.
• Thinner or thicker: If you like a softer, runnier consistency, check your crème after 24 hours. I’ve left some batches for as long as 48 hours, especially when using yogurt, because I found that yogurt (and not buttermilk) produces a thinner version. Just keep in mind that the mixture will continue to thicken once you place it in the fridge.
• Temperature advice: Even though some recipes recommend kickstarting the process by heating the cream mixture to take off the refrigerator chill, I found that using cold cream actually worked better. It made for a thicker, creamier result. Plus, after 12 to 24 hours on the counter, the short amount of time you save by preheating the mixture is not that significant in the long run. You may want to warm the cream slightly if you’re working in a cold kitchen.
• Stop early: This crème fraîche becomes super rich and creamy around the 48-hour mark. You can also halt the process early by refrigerating it to stop the bacterial action.
• Flavor clues: Just as every brand of store-bought crème fraîche tastes different, yours will vary slightly depending on the flavor of your milk or yogurt, its butterfat content, and how long it ferments.
• Tangy topping: Use crème fraîche as-is on desserts, or make my fluffy Crème Fraîche Whipped Cream (the crème fraîche adds tang and also stabilizes the whipped cream a bit).
• Don’t freeze: Freezing can make the crème fraîche grainy, so it’s not recommended.

Make Ahead and Storage Instructions

• Make ahead tips: 
  • After you combine the heavy cream and yogurt or buttermilk, it can sit at room temperature for 48 hours.
• How to store leftovers:
  • After the 48-hour-fermentation period, the crème fraîche will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to seven days.

FAQs

More Homemade Basic Recipes

• How to Make Sour Cream
• How to Make Peanut Butter
• Whipped Cream Without Heavy Cream (from Butter and Milk)
• Classic Strawberry Jam Recipe
• How to Make Cream Cheese

Try These Recipes!

How to Make Greek Yogurt

Whipped Topping From Milk Powder

How to Fix Seized Chocolate

How to Make Whipped Cream Without Heavy Cream (From Butter and Milk)