Cream counts

Q: Can you replace cream with half-and-half in cooking or desserts?

A: While you can replace cream with half-and-half when cooking, you have to be aware of its properties. Since the fat content of half-and-half is substantially less, it will behave differently from cream in certain dishes. So you might not want to add half-and-half to a lemon sauce in place of cream, as the acidity would cause half-and-half to curdle. You also can't reduce half-and-half the same way, so anything that calls for boiling would be problematic. With baking, it most likely wouldn't work, as recipes were developed for a certain level of fat/liquid. Adding half-and-half would throw off the recipe.