creaming

Pluralcreamings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of cream.

   The recipe starts with creaming the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

   Creaming the shortening thoroughly is the key to a tender crumb.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense the verb has, so context decides which one is meant. In the kitchen it means beating butter or pureeing. In slang a team can be creaming its rivals, defeating them decisively. The verb also has vulgar slang senses referring to ejaculation, so the bare participle is safest in a clearly culinary or competitive setting.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A baking method in which fat and sugar are beaten together so that air is worked into the mixture, forming a soft cream.

   The pastry chef explained that proper creaming determines the crumb of the finished cake.

   Without enough creaming, the butter and sugar won't trap the air a sponge needs.

   Note

   A baker's term for the opening step of many cake recipes. Solid fat and sugar are beaten until the sugar crystals cut tiny air pockets into the fat, and that trapped air helps leaven what is baked. Where the general act of creaming covers any creaming process, this word names one specific method, the one recipes mean when they say to cream until pale.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The action or process of creaming something, turning it into a smooth, cream-like form.

   The creaming of the cocoa and fat produced a glossy, pourable liquid.

   Slow creaming of the ingredients yielded a uniform, silky texture.

   Similarblending

   Note

   A laboratory use lies outside the kitchen. The 1933 Bureau of Standards Journal of Research counts the number of creamings needed to purify a substance, and each one separates it into an upper and a lower layer. That plural shows the countable side of the noun: one creaming, several creamings, each a repeated step rather than the baking method.

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