No matter how well you prepare for a baking project, it seems like you always forget to stock one ingredient, or even buy the wrong thing. With a bit of finesse, you can sometimes use popular substitutes in your recipes, and one common replacement is using milk in place of heavy cream; however, this swap is not as simple as it seems.

If you find yourself without heavy cream, it seems logical that full-fat whole milk would be a fine replacement. However, while fat content in milk ranges from 1% in skim milk to around 4% for whole milk, heavy cream has a fat content between 36% to 40%, so you’ll have to make up for the difference in fat content by adding butter.

To create a replacement for one cup of heavy cream, melt 1/4 cup butter and stir in 3/4 cup milk until fully combined; this substitute can be used for any recipe, not just baking. Note that butter is about 80% fat and the rest is water, so while melting your butter, heat it enough until the water evaporates, but not so much that you burn the milk solids.