Cream Fat Content Converter

What “cream” means in the US, UK, France, Australia and India, with the legal minima quoted where they are legal and named as conventions where they are not — plus the mass balance that mixes one cream into another, and an honest account of why butter and milk will not whip.

Last updated 24 Sep 2026

Cream fat content

Name ↔ fat %, and the mix to get there

What have you got?

Which cream? (the name is the whole problem)Each row names the region whose convention it belongs to and says whether that figure is set in law. Four of these names appear in more than one country at more than one fat content.

Fat content (%)Off the pot, the tub or the nutrition panel. In the EU and UK the panel gives fat per 100 g, which is the same thing as this.

How much cream the recipe wants (g)Grams of the finished cream you need. The mass balance below works out what to mix to get it.

Target fat content (%)What the recipe assumes. 36 for US heavy cream, 35 for UK or Australian whipping, 48 for UK double, 30 for French crème.

Mix it from this

…and this

Not a circuit: one axis of milk fat per cent with fourteen national names laid on it, and a vertical line at your own figure. The bands show what the arithmetic cannot: that US light cream and UK single cream start in the same place, that a US whipping cream may be five points leaner than a British or Australian one, that UK crème fraîche starts at 25% where French crème starts at 30, and that Indian fresh cream sits below every whipping figure on the chart. Only the US bands have published upper limits; the UK and French names are drawn up to the next name above them, which is how a shelf works rather than how a rule reads. Anything left of 30% is below every published whipping name, which is a labelling floor rather than a measured threshold.

35.0%Example

UK whipping cream (35%), with 200 g of 36% cream wanted from double cream and whole milk

Two lines of mass balance

fat in the mix = m_hi f_hi + m_lo f_lo · and m_hi + m_lo = M ⇒ m_hi = M (f − f_lo) / (f_hi − f_lo)

f: the fat percentage you are trying to hit — what the recipe assumed when it wrote “cream”
f_hi: the fat percentage of the richest thing you have. 48% for UK double cream, 36% for US heavy, 81.11% for butter (USDA 173410)
f_lo: the fat percentage of what you are letting it down with. 3.25% for whole milk (USDA 171265), 0% for water
M: the total mass you need. The equation is in mass, not volume, because a fat percentage is a mass fraction
what it leaves out: the emulsion. Butter and milk at the right fat content will not whip, because cream’s fat globules are intact and butter’s are not

Worked example

UK whipping cream (35%), with 200 g of 36% cream wanted from double cream and whole milk
The named cream is UK whipping cream, and the Dairy UK code puts it at not less than 35% milk fat — that is the headline
Which is five points above the 30% floor US law sets for its own “light whipping cream”, and exactly the figure Australia sets for unqualified cream
To make 200 g at 36% from double cream at 48% and whole milk at 3.25%: 200 × (36 − 3.25) ÷ (48 − 3.25) = 146.4 g of double cream
and 200 − 146.4 = 53.6 g of whole milk
Check it: (146.4 × 48 + 53.6 × 3.25) ÷ 200 = 36.000%
The butter route gets the same fat content from 84.1 g of butter and 115.9 g of milk — and will not whip, because the emulsion is wrong

The same words, four jurisdictions, different numbers

The US column is the firmest thing here: 21 CFR part 131 is a standard of identity, it is a US Government work, and it is quoted directly. **The UK column is not law any more.** The reserved descriptions lived in the Food Labelling Regulations 1996, which were revoked on 13 December 2018; they now survive as customary names under Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 and in a Dairy UK code of practice which says of itself that “The provisions of this Code do not in any way alter the law.” France’s figures are law (décret 80-313) and Australia’s are law (Food Standards Code 2.5.2). The Indian row is a single maker’s label, not a class: FSSAI’s gazetted cream classes could not be fetched and are not asserted. Note the traps: a US “light cream” at 18% and a UK “single cream” at 18% agree, but a US “whipping cream” can be 30% where a UK one must be 35, and “crème fraîche” is 25% in the UK code and 30% in France.
Where	Name	Min milk fat (%)	Max (%)	Set in law?	Source
United States	Half-and-half	10.5	18	Yes	21 CFR 131.180
United States	Light cream	18	30	Yes	21 CFR 131.155
United States	Light whipping cream	30	36	Yes	21 CFR 131.157
United States	Heavy cream / heavy whipping cream	36	—	Yes	21 CFR 131.150
United States	Sour cream	18	—	Yes	21 CFR 131.160
United Kingdom	Half cream	12	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
United Kingdom	Single cream / cream	18	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
United Kingdom	Sterilised cream	23	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
United Kingdom	Creme fraiche (UK code)	25	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
United Kingdom	Whipping cream	35	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
United Kingdom	Double cream	48	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
United Kingdom	Clotted cream	55	—	No	Dairy UK code of practice
France	Creme legere	12	30	Yes	Decret 80-313
France	Creme / creme fraiche	30	—	Yes	Decret 80-313
Australia / NZ	Cream (unqualified)	35	—	Yes	Food Standards Code 2.5.2
India	Amul Fresh Cream (a label, not a class)	25	—	No	maker’s label

Making 100 g of each cream from what you have, by mass balance

Two ingredients, one equation. To make mass M at fat f from a source at *f_hi* and a diluent at *f_lo*, use M(f − *f_lo*) / (*f_hi* − *f_lo*) of the source and the rest diluent. Every row above is that formula, and the calculator proves it by recomputing the fat content of the mixture it just specified. **What the equation does not capture is the physics.** Cream is an emulsion of intact milk-fat globules inside their own membranes; whipping works because those globules partially coalesce around air bubbles. Butter is an emulsion that has already been broken and inverted. Melt butter into milk and you have the right fat content and the wrong microstructure: it will enrich a sauce, a soup or a ganache perfectly well, and it will not whip. Getting to 36% this way is a cooking substitution, not a cream.
To get	Target fat	Double cream (48%)	+ whole milk	or butter (81.11%)	+ whole milk
US heavy cream	36%	73.2 g	26.8 g	42.1 g	57.9 g
UK whipping cream	35%	70.9 g	29.1 g	40.8 g	59.2 g
UK double cream	48%	100.0 g	0.0 g	57.5 g	42.5 g
French crème	30%	59.8 g	40.2 g	34.4 g	65.6 g
single / light cream	18%	33.0 g	67.0 g	18.9 g	81.1 g

The whipping threshold, and what it actually is

There is no measured physical constant at 30%, and this page will not invent one. What exists is a naming floor in US law at 30%, a different naming floor in the UK and Australia at 35%, and a continuous relationship between fat content and foam stability that nobody has published as a threshold. The practical reading: below about 30% do not plan on a foam, from 30 to 36 expect one that weeps, and above 36 expect one that holds.
Figure	Where it comes from	What it is
30%	21 CFR 131.157	The floor of the lowest product US law lets you call a whipping cream — “light whipping cream is cream which contains not less than 30 percent but less than 36 percent milkfat”. It is a naming rule, not a measurement.
35%	Dairy UK code of practice; Food Standards Code 2.5.2	Where the UK code puts “whipping cream” and where Australia puts plain unqualified “cream”. A cream sold as whipping cream in Britain or Australia has five percentage points more fat than one sold as whipping cream in America.
36%	21 CFR 131.150	US heavy cream. Above this the foam is measurably more stable rather than merely possible.
25%	Amul Fresh Cream label	The commonest “cream” on an Indian shelf, and below every figure above — which is the answer to why whipping it fails. It is not a bad cream; it is a different product with the same word on it.
No number	America’s Test Kitchen	Their measurement is of a gradient, not a cliff: “toppings made with whipping cream lost five times the amount of water as toppings made from higher fat heavy cream”, because fat stabilises the air bubbles and holds the free water in place. More fat, more stable foam, all the way up until you churn butter.

One word, four conventions, and a mass balance

A cream’s name is a national convention, and four countries disagree. In the United States the names are standards of identity in 21 CFR part 131 and they are quotable to the letter: “Heavy cream is cream which contains not less than 36 percent milkfat”; “Light whipping cream … not less than 30 percent but less than 36 percent”; “Light cream … not less than 18 percent but less than 30 percent”; “Half-and-half … not less than 10.5 percent but less than 18 percent”. In France, décret 80-313 requires 30 g of fat per 100 g before a product may be called crème at all, with crème légère from 12 g. In Australia and New Zealand, Standard 2.5.2 puts unqualified cream at 350 g/kg — 35%. And on an Indian shelf the commonest thing labelled cream is about 25%.

The British numbers are the surprise: they are not law any more. Single 18%, whipping 35%, double 48%, clotted 55% were reserved descriptions in the Food Labelling Regulations 1996, and those regulations were revoked on 13 December 2018. Dairy UK and the Provision Trade Federation published a code of practice to hold the line, preserving the same figures as customary names under Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 — and that code says of itself that “The provisions of this Code do not in any way alter the law.” In practice British cream still follows the numbers. But if you are relying on a label, the American and French ones are enforceable and the British ones are an industry agreement.

Which is why recipes fail across borders. A US recipe calling for whipping cream can be satisfied at 30% fat; a British cook reading “whipping cream” buys 35%. A British recipe calling for double cream wants 48%, which no American supermarket sells — heavy cream is 36% and up. A French recipe calling for crème has at least 30%. And an Indian cook following any of them with 25% fresh cream is trying to build a foam out of a product that has not got the fat for one. None of these is anybody’s mistake. They are four conventions with three words between them.

The substitution is a two-line mass balance, and it is the useful part of this page. Fat is a mass fraction, so mixing is linear: to make mass M at fat f out of a rich source at f_hi and a diluent at f_lo, take M(f − f_lo) / (f_hi − f_lo) of the source and make the rest up with the diluent. 200 g of 36% cream is 146 g of UK double cream and 54 g of whole milk; the same 200 g is 84 g of butter and 116 g of milk. The calculator recomputes the fat content of the mixture it has just specified, so you can see the balance close.

And here is what the mass balance cannot do. It gets the fat percentage right and says nothing about the structure. Cream is an emulsion of milk-fat globules still wrapped in their own membranes, and whipping works because those globules partially coalesce around air bubbles and build a network that traps them. Butter is that same emulsion already broken and turned inside out. Melt butter into milk and you have the fat content of cream and fat droplets of the wrong kind with no membrane: it will enrich a sauce, a soup, a mash or a ganache exactly as cream would, and it will not whip, however cold or however long you beat it. That is the honest boundary of this page. For the butter arithmetic itself see the butter converter, and for ingredient densities the cups to grams converter.

Frequently asked questions

What is double cream in American terms?

There is no American equivalent. UK double cream is 48% milk fat by the Dairy UK code; the richest thing with a US standard of identity is heavy cream at “not less than 36 percent milkfat” (21 CFR 131.150), and most US heavy cream sits at 36 to 40. So a recipe that wants double cream wants roughly a quarter more fat than heavy cream delivers. Use this page’s mass balance: 200 g of 48% cream can be built from about 147 g of 36% heavy cream and 53 g of butter (the mass balance, not the fat difference — the butter brings mass with its fat), or bought as “manufacturing cream” at 40% where a supplier will sell it to you. Going the other way, a recipe calling for heavy cream is safely made with UK whipping cream at 35% or with double cream let down with milk.

Are the UK cream names legally defined?

Not any more, and this surprises people. The reserved descriptions — single 18%, whipping 35%, double 48%, clotted 55% and the rest — were in the Food Labelling Regulations 1996, and those were revoked on 13 December 2018. Dairy UK and the Provision Trade Federation published a code of practice to keep the same numbers in use as customary names under Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, and that code states plainly that “The provisions of this Code do not in any way alter the law.” In practice British cream still follows those figures, because the industry agreed to; but they are a convention now, where the US figures in 21 CFR part 131 and the French ones in décret 80-313 are law.

Why won’t Indian “fresh cream” whip?

Because it is about 25% milk fat. Amul’s own label describes Amul Fresh Cream as “Low Fat Cream with Milk Fat Minimum 25%”, and 25% is below every whipping figure anybody publishes — five points below the US naming floor of 30% and ten below the UK and Australian 35%. Nothing is wrong with the cream and no amount of chilling or beating will fix it; there is not enough fat to build a stable foam. Enrich with it, cook with it, and use this page’s mass balance with butter if you need to get the fat up — accepting that the result will enrich beautifully and still not whip.

Can I make cream from butter and milk?

You can make something with the right fat content, and for cooking that is usually enough. Melt butter into warm milk in the proportions above and you get a liquid whose fat percentage matches cream exactly, and it will enrich a sauce, a soup, a mash or a ganache as cream would. It will not whip. Cream is an emulsion of milk-fat globules still inside their own membranes, and whipping works by partially coalescing those globules around air bubbles; butter is that emulsion already broken and inverted, and melting it into milk gives you fat droplets of the wrong kind with no membrane. Blending hard helps the texture and does not recreate the structure. If the recipe whips, buy cream.

What is crème fraîche, in fat terms?

It depends which country you are in, which is the theme of this page. The UK code of practice treats crème fraîche as a soured cream of not less than 25% milk fat. In France, décret 80-313 requires at least 30 g of fat per 100 g for anything called crème at all, with “fraîche” adding a rule about pasteurisation and packing within 24 hours rather than about fat. So the same name is a 25% minimum on one side of the Channel and a 30% minimum on the other, and French crème légère runs from 12% to just under 30 rather than the 12-15% band it is usually quoted as.

How do I get from a nutrition panel to a fat percentage?

In the UK and the EU the panel already gives it: “fat, per 100 g” is a percentage by mass, which is exactly what every figure on this page is. A US panel gives grams of fat per serving with the serving in millilitres, so you need the density to convert — cream runs about 0.99 to 1.01 g/mL depending on fat, close enough to 1 that dividing the fat grams by the serving millilitres and multiplying by 100 gets you within a couple of per cent. A US heavy cream panel typically shows about 5 g of fat in a 15 mL tablespoon, which is 33 to 34% by that arithmetic and 36%-plus on the label — the gap is the rounding rules the panel uses, not the cream.

Is “manufacturing cream” 40%?

In the trade, usually, and in Canada it is a defined 40% minimum. But 21 CFR part 131 carries no standard of identity for manufacturing cream at all, so in the United States the 40% is a trade figure rather than a legal minimum — worth knowing before you build a recipe on it. Read the tub.

Related calculators

References

21 CFR part 131, Milk and Cream (eCFR, read 27 September 2026). A US Government work, quoted directly, and the firmest set of numbers on this page: “Heavy cream is cream which contains not less than 36 percent milkfat” (131.150); “Light cream is cream which contains not less than 18 percent but less than 30 percent milkfat” (131.155); “Light whipping cream is cream which contains not less than 30 percent but less than 36 percent milkfat” (131.157); “Half-and-half … not less than 10.5 percent but less than 18 percent milkfat” (131.180); “Sour cream contains not less than 18 percent milkfat” (131.160). Part 131 carries NO standard of identity for “manufacturing cream”, so the 40% figure quoted for it in trade sources is a trade figure, not a legal minimum.
Dairy UK and the Provision Trade Federation, Compositional Standards for Cream, code of practice, December 2018 (dairyuk.org, read 27 September 2026). This is the document that matters for the UK names, and it matters because of what it says about itself: the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 were revoked on 13 December 2018, so “there will no longer be specific legislation relating to product composition and labelling”, and “The provisions of this Code do not in any way alter the law.” The UK cream names are therefore CUSTOMARY names under Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 and a voluntary industry code, not legal definitions. Its schedule: clotted 55%, double 48%, whipping and whipped 35%, sterilised 23%, cream/single 18%, half and sterilised half 12%, crème fraîche 25% as a soured cream — all “milk fat (w/w)”.
Syndifrais, Crèmes fraîches — Règlementation (syndifrais.com, read 27 September 2026), summarising Décret n° 80-313 du 23 avril 1980 relatif aux crèmes de lait destinées à la consommation: “crème” requires a minimum of 30 g of fat per 100 g and “crème légère” a minimum of 12 g, below which the word crème may not be used; “fraîche” is reserved for cream pasteurised and packed within 24 hours. The décret itself is on Légifrance but returned 403 to this fetch, so the figures here are the Syndifrais summary and are labelled as such. Note the consequence: “crème légère” spans 12% to just under 30%, not the 12-15% band it is often quoted as.
Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, Standard 2.5.2 — Cream, as quoted by Wikipedia, Cream (read 27 September 2026): cream is “a milk product comparatively rich in fat, in the form of an emulsion of fat-in-skim milk”, and “Cream sold without further specification must contain no less than 350 g/kg (35%) milk fat.” Standard 2.5.2 itself was not fetched; it is cited by number.
Amul’s own product labelling for Amul Fresh Cream, as reproduced by Indian retail and trade listings (read 27 September 2026): “Low Fat Cream with Milk Fat Minimum 25%”. That is why a recipe that says “cream” fails in India: 25% is below every whipping threshold on this page. FSSAI’s gazetted compositional classes for cream could not be fetched and no Indian legal class is asserted here.
America’s Test Kitchen, Which cream is best for whipping? (read 27 September 2026), for what fat actually does in a foam rather than for a threshold: “toppings made with whipping cream lost five times the amount of water as toppings made from higher fat heavy cream”, because “Fat helps stabilize the air bubbles in whipped cream and prevents free water from moving very far.” There is no measured cliff at 30%; 30% is the floor of the lowest product the FDA lets you call a whipping cream, and this page says so instead of inventing a physical constant.
USDA FoodData Central, entries 173410 (butter, salted — 81.11 g fat per 100 g) and 171265 (milk, whole, 3.25% milkfat), the two ends of the mass balance. The same two foods carry this plugin’s cups-to-grams converter densities, so the two pages cannot disagree.