"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
>
> I have always just ignored recipes that call for "cool whip."
>
> What exactly is cool whip - what are its uses?
>
> Can you make it yourself from your own ingredients
> if your recipe calls for it?

Cool Whip is a frozen non-dairy whipped topping. It's the stuff I
grew up with and I have a nostalgic fondness for it, although I
haven't tasted it in years and I've moved on to real whipped cream.
It's not bad as far as substitutes go, but it's full of chemicals
which you really don't need to ingest. Regular, sweetened, flavored
and/or stabilized whipped cream can often be substituted in recipes
calling for CoolWhip, although you might want to skip or modify such
recipes since they'll often contain plenty of other highly processed
foods.

As for making Cool Whip yourself, I seem to recall a powdered product
called "Dream Whip" that you ... er ... whipped up yourself at home
which was very similar. Don't know if it's still available ... hmm,
it is, at least according to Kraft's website. But other than another
chemically-laden substitute, I wouldn't expect you'd be able to
produce something just like Cool Whip at home.

Anyway, I'd skip both of them and critically evaluate any recipe
containing CoolWhip to determine whether "real" foods could be
substituted with similar results.

Hm ... my bias against highly processed foods is showing.
-j