I spent a few months working in a restaurant that used a ton of house-made crème fraiche. A single batch would be made in a 22-quart Cambro container, where you add 16 quarts of heavy cream and 2 quarts of buttermilk and let it sit out for a few days covered with cheesecloth before transferring it to quart containers and storing it in the fridge. That’s way more crème fraiche than what we need at home, but I loved the utter simplicity of the 8:1 heavy cream to buttermilk ratio. The way that the liquids combine together and sit at room temperature to create this completely different flavor and texture is truly magical. When making a slightly smaller quantity at home, I found that it would thicken up after a day or two, instead of the three days we would traditionally wait at the restaurant. Note that it helps to find yourself some good-quality cultured buttermilk before you try to make this.
Ingredients
4 cupsheavy cream
½cuphigh-quality cultured buttermilk
A clean glass or plastic storage container
Cheesecloth,for covering clean storage container
Kitchen string,for securing cheesecloth on top of container
Instructions
Mix heavy cream and buttermilk in a glass container or plastic container and stir to combine.
Cover with a few layers of cheesecloth and secure with kitchen string.
Allow to sit at room temperature for roughly 48 hours, and check the consistency.
Stir the mixture together to get rid of lumps, cover, and transfer to fridge for later use.
Notes
The crème fraiche will keep for a couple weeks when stored in airtight plastic containers in the fridge.