single cream
- noun
- /ˈsɪŋɡl kriːm/
- UK
- When making the sauce, don't forget to add some single cream for extra creaminess.
Examples
-
Shall we celebrate with single cream or double?
-
For this dessert recipe, I used single cream to give it a richer flavor.
-
She poured single cream over her strawberries to make them even more delicious.
Synonyms
Thick, fatty part of milk used in cooking and on food
Thick cream with about 18% fat used to lighten coffee
A thin dairy product with about 18 percent fat used in cooking and on desserts
How Rich
- UK
- UK
- UK
- UK
Surface Forms
Morphology
Knowing 'cream' and 'single', a B1 learner can infer this refers to a particular kind of cream (the adjective signals a variety), so the broad category is clear. However, the specific culinary sense — that 'single cream' is the lower‑fat UK variety (~18% butterfat) and how it differs from 'double cream' — is not predictable from the constituents alone, making the expression only partially predictable.
Etymology
Single cream may come from the idea of one thin layer of fat on milk, where single means one and cream is the fatty top. So the name shows it is a lighter, thinner cream, not 'double cream', and that is why people use it for pouring over fruit or adding to coffee.