Fresh Cream vs Buttercream: What's the Difference?

What is the difference between fresh cream and buttercream?

Fresh cream is dairy cream that has been whipped, while buttercream is butter beaten with icing sugar. Everything else follows from that: how each frosting tastes, how it behaves at room temperature, and what it is good at decorating.

Both are well-loved ways to finish a cake, and neither is a better choice in the abstract. The right one depends on how sweet you want the cake, how far it has to travel, how warm the room will be and what the design needs. At The Place, a fresh-cream cake kitchen in Markham, our ready-made menu is built around fresh cream, so this guide explains the difference plainly and then shows what that means when you order.

Our pick Same-day optionSesame ChantillyBlack sesame fresh cream cake on soft Japanese chiffon; has an Express version.6″ · 8″ · 10″ · serves 6–22From $51.95 Choose size

How do fresh cream and buttercream taste and feel different?

Fresh cream tastes of milk and feels light, while buttercream tastes of butter and feels dense. Fresh cream is mostly air and dairy, so it melts as you eat it and lets the sponge underneath come through. Buttercream is richer and heavier, so a small slice goes further.

Sweetness follows the ingredients. Buttercream is built on butter and icing sugar, so it usually tastes sweeter, although meringue-based buttercreams are often described as lighter. Fresh cream starts without sugar, so the baker decides how sweet to make it. Our Lightly Sweet line uses cane sugar and is less sweet than a supermarket cake. Our 0 Sugar Added line uses the same real dairy fresh cream, sweetened without cane sugar; see each cake's ingredients for what goes in.

A quick way to tell what a cake is finished with is to look at it. Real dairy cream is a soft ivory and pipes with soft, rounded edges, and it needs the fridge. Each cake's ingredients are listed on its product page and on our ingredients page. Neither style is automatically better with a given flavour. A strong coffee, tea or chocolate flavour works in both; a delicate flavour such as matcha or black sesame tends to show up more clearly in a light cream. If you are choosing a flavour, our cake flavours guide describes each one.

Which one holds up better at room temperature?

Buttercream is generally more forgiving in a warm room, and fresh cream needs the fridge. Butter-based frosting keeps its shape longer on a counter, though it still softens in real heat. Dairy cream softens within hours, which is why fresh cream cakes are chilled until they are served.

For our cakes, the care guide is specific. Keep total time at room temperature to 2 hours, or 1 hour on hot days. Chill the cake in its box within 1 hour of handover, do not freeze it because freezing can damage the texture and flavour, and serve it straight from the fridge with no warming needed. In the car, keep the box flat on the floor or in the trunk, with the air conditioning on in summer. The full steps are in our guide to storing, transporting and serving a fresh cream cake.

If your party is outdoors on a hot afternoon, plan the cake for the end of the party: keep it in its box in the fridge until the moment it is cut, and keep its total time at room temperature to 1 hour.

Which decorating styles suit which frosting?

Buttercream suits sharp, structured decoration, and fresh cream suits soft, rounded decoration. Buttercream holds crisp piped borders, ruffles and textured finishes, which is why it appears on heavily piped designs. Fresh cream is a soft ivory that pipes with rounded edges, which suits swirls, smooth coats, drips, fresh fruit and cakes where the cream itself is the decoration.

Texture also changes how a design looks from across the room. Plush-style character cakes, for example, rely on soft cream folds, and that look comes naturally from fresh cream. A cake with a crisp, architectural border will depend more on the frosting a baker chooses for that design. Check each product page for how a design is finished, and message us before you order if a detail matters.

What is a fresh cream cake at The Place?

A fresh cream cake at The Place is a Japanese chiffon sponge finished with real dairy fresh cream. Our Lightly Sweet and 0 Sugar Added lines are built that way, and the Keto version is flourless. These are the three choices side by side, using a black sesame cake as the example:

Sesame Chantilly is a light black sesame fresh cream cake on soft Japanese chiffon, described on its page as smooth, nutty and delicately sweet; it has an Express version for same-day. First Frost Strawberry is a light vanilla chiffon cake topped with fresh cream and whole strawberries and finished with a smiley face, a good first choice if you want the cream to be the star.

Some limits to know. Eggless is offered on many Lightly Sweet designs for $5 and applies to the cake and cream of the main cake only, and it cannot be combined with 0 Sugar Added or Keto. 0 Sugar Added is only about sugar, so all of these cakes contain milk and eggs. Our kitchen handles milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts and tree nuts every day and cannot guarantee that any cake is free of any allergen.

Which should I order?

If you are unsure, think about three things: how long the cake will sit out, how sweet your guests like their cake, and whether the design needs sharp detail. If the cake will sit out for a long time, keep it in its box in the fridge until it is time to cut, and keep total time at room temperature to 2 hours (1 hour on hot days). If your guests prefer less sweet, fresh cream gives the baker room to lighten the sweetness. If the design needs crisp piping, ask what it is finished with.

Order fresh cream when you want a light, soft cake that will be chilled and served soon after it arrives. If the cake must sit out in the warm for a long time, keep it chilled until cutting and plan the timing. This table shows how the two match common situations.

Pre-orders open from the day after tomorrow, and only cakes with Express in the name can be made same-day. If you are ready to look, the fresh cream cakes collection shows the whole range, and you can narrow down by size and flavour from there.