Crèmes and crémeux: a surprisingly dreamy accent

Have you ever had that dreamy texture in a mousse or ganache? Almost as soft as a cloud, a crème or crémeux adds a perfect finishing touch to your creations. These delicious preparations create surprising accents, offer consumers unexpected flavours and add a special twist to your entire assortment thanks to their texture. In this article, we offer you tips and inspiration for how you can make and use delicious crèmes and soft crémeux. But what exactly is the difference between the two?

Crème

A good, flavoursome crème is perhaps the most elegant way to harmoniously add an accent layer of fruit or nuts to a mousse. The butter in the crème creates a luscious, velvety texture in the mouth. At room temperature, a crème is light and airy but also just about spreadable and suitable for piping. Crème has a full, rich taste, a smooth texture, and melts quickly and completely in the mouth. The key to preparing a good crème is to whip enough air into a mixture of fat, sugar and liquid.

Crémeux

In terms of texture, a crémeux is more a combination of a mousse and a ganache than an actual crème. A crémeux is less airy than a crème and has an exceptionally soft, creamy texture. With both crème and crémeux, you have endless choice in terms of flavours: from classic to exotic, from fruity to spicy. You can use them as praline filling, inside a cake or as decoration.

Flavourings

With Debic’s creams, which are always stable, as the base for your crème or crémeux, you have a wide choice of flavourings. Think of classics such as chocolate, vanilla or mocha. With Debic Cream Plus Mascarpone, you can make this delicious coffee crème. You can use fruit to add a touch of freshness and an extra bite. Add small pieces of fruit to your cream mixture or try a fruit purée for an even more intense flavour. To avoid curdling, make sure to reduce the fruit juice first. After that, you can use the concentrated liquid to flavour your cream fillings without losing any of the texture. Use Debic Stand & Overrun to make this fresh blackcurrant crémeux. Nut pastes can also be easily folded into a cream mixture. The intense taste of the nuts, roasted or otherwise, goes well with chocolate or fruit and accentuates the creaminess of your crème or crémeux. With Debic Stand & Overrun, you can also make this pistachio crémeux. Finally, herbs, spices or alcohol can also be used to create perfect flavours. With these you can add a refined touch to your creations.

Techniques: mixing and emulsifying

You can use various techniques to make a perfect crème or crémeux with the different types of creams offered by Debic. The easiest way to add flavour to a filling is to mix in a flavouring. Depending on the particular ingredient, you need to keep in mind the temperature and its moisture content, since a cream mixture can curdle. Fatty liquids such as cream do not always mix easily with watery liquids. To get a homogeneous mass, you can emulsify the ingredients with a hand blender.

Techniques: cold and hot infusion

To add a flavour to your crème or crémeux, you can also choose to infuse. Flavourings such as lemongrass or finely ground herbs can be simply added to cold, liquid cream. We call this the cold technique. After infusing for a few hours, you can strain and whip the cream, if necessary. The zest of citrus fruits such as lemon, lime, kaffir lime and grapefruit also work well with cream. You will need two to three fruits per litre. There is also a hot technique for infusion. With woody spices and herbs such as star anise, vanilla, cinnamon, licorice or clove, you can create a delicious cream infusion using this hot technique. Heat a small portion (10-15%) of the liquid cream to 65-70°C together with the spices or herbs. Allow this to infuse for an hour and then add in the rest of the cold cream. Seal the mixture hermetically and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Strain the infused cream before whipping it.

Variation

Another tip: finely chopped or ground herbs are great for cold infusions. But if you use the hot technique, more aromas will be released. By regularly varying the textures, flavours and colours in your assortment, you add an extra dimension to each of your creations. So give free rein to your creativity!