When a recipe calls for "heavy cream," what should you use? Does canned milk go into this category, or half and half, or whipping cream?

 Heavy cream is defined in this country as cream with a fat content of between 30% and 40% (although we have seen it as high as 42%). You can often find it packaged as "heavy cream," but is also called whipping cream (or light whipping cream (with a fat content of 30% to 36%) or heavy whipping cream (36% to 40%)).

Half and half has a fat content of about 10.5%, and is definitely not what the recipe is calling for. Neither is canned evaporated milk, which is simply milk with about half the water removed, and a fat content of 8%.

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