Substituting UHT cream for regular cream

I would like to make cream biscuits, but have not been able to find regular, U.S.-style cream here in small town Chile. The only cream I've seen here is UHT and comes in TetraPak containers. It is much thicker than the cream we have in the US, almost like frosting, and has a lot of ingredients with long names that are presumably thickeners, stabilizers, and preservatives. I tried to make whipped cream with it once and it was a big flop, so I know it doesn't always behave like non-UHT cream. I'm worried that the unusual thickness of the UHT cream will throw off the ratio of flour to liquids and the biscuits will come out dry. Have any of you tried baking with UHT cream and noticed any differences?

If the town were a little smaller, I would set out in search of cows, but my current location is ever-so-slightly too urban for that strategy.

I found another post on this forum asking more or less the same thing, but the answers there all revolved around substituting water buffalo milk, which is definitely not available here.

macfadden
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4 Comments

macfadden
macfadden August 8, 2015
Update: This won't be very helpful for anyone who only has access to shelf-stable cream, but in case anyone else is looking for fresh cream in Chile, I thought I would mention that it is available. It's not hard to find if you know what to look for: it's sold in big, 1 liter bags from Soprole (http://www.lider.cl/dys/productImages/g/235709ga.jpg), and it is usually displayed flat on the bottom of the refrigerator cabinet because the bag is a bit floppy and doesn't stand up very well. I have seen it at Jumbo and the dreaded Líder.
 
macfadden
macfadden August 4, 2015
Clarification: Upon further investigation, it appears lots of cream sold in refrigerator cabinets in the U.S. is UHT pasteurized, so just calling UHT is not really descriptive of the difference. The difference is that the stuff here is shelf stable, like Parmalat, and really thick. Thanks for the answers so far.
 
702551
702551 August 2, 2015
Since I have zero experience with UHT cream, if I were in your position, I would make two small batches of cream biscuits: one using the UHT cream as is, and another using UHT cream diluted with water to approximate the consistency of regular American-style cream.

Again, just a suggestion as I have zero experience with UHT cream but that's the way I'd tackle your particular conundrum.

Good luck.
 
PieceOfLayerCake
PieceOfLayerCake August 2, 2015
The texture of the cream alone makes me think its not suitable for substitution in baking. The only thing I can possibly think of doing is somehow thinning the UHT, but that would take some experimentation.
 
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