Cream

Cream is a dairy product, rich in fat and skimmed from milk, usually cow’s milk. Cream contains all the main constituents of milk but in different proportions, especially butterfat. The fat globules in cream are lighter than the rest of the milk so they naturally cluster and float, rising to the surface when whole milk is left to stand. Once skimmed by hand, commercial cream now is separated by centrifugal force in a mechanical separator that rotates at 5,400 revolutions per minute. Jersey cows yield more cream per gallon of milk than a Holstein and were popular in the nineteenth century. But the demand for milk eventually caused yield to be more important than butterfat, and thus the prevalence of the black-and-white-spotted Holstein, America’s most popular and productive dairy cow.