I’ve always wondered whether to use cream or creme. I know, both are used, but when and how? From my understanding, I think of creme as a dessert.
She pressed down on the lever to shoot out a mound of whipped creme.
Though, I don’t know about the cream. Multiple times, I’ve had people come up to me and say, “It’s c-r-e-a-m, not c-r-e-m-e, when I’m talking about whipped creme. Then again, I’m 12.
The point is, does creme have multiple uses? So far, I only think of the dessert as that.
The first two definitions of “creme” on Merriam-Webster are:
1 : a sweet liqueur
2 : cream or a preparation made with or resembling cream used in cooking
The word comes from French crème, which means…cream! Cream, in English, is a word that means “that dairy product that comes from the fatty stuff from milk.” Cream is used in common foods like whipped cream and sour cream. Creme, on the other hand, does not refer to what we in English call cream. It is used in English only in many culinary terms–which come from French–such as crème brûlée, and in expressions like “crème de la crème.”
So the people telling you that it’s whipped cream, not whipped creme, were correct.