Double Cream? Single Cream?

I have a recipe that needs double and single cream - I dont remember ever seeing 'double' cream in the shops.

Can someone help me on what I need to buy please

TIA

wills13, I'm assuming that the recipe you have is not a N.Z. one? 'Double' and 'Single' cream classification revolves round the fat content of the cream.

Because of the fat content of our cream here in N.Z. it is usually ok to simply use the cream that can be readily bought at all our supermarkets, dairies, etc. :-))

Lewis Road Creamery makes single cream and double cream. Most New Worlds stock them, and some Countdowns.

Single and double cream doesn't exist here in NZ except for Lewis Rd version which is way over priced.
NZ cream is somewhere between single and double on fat content.
If you want higher fat content, just scald the cream and skim it.

Dairy is our biggest commodity industry isn't it?

Once upon a time when it wasn't as big as it is now, we could be butter, cream and milk with no variation. Then there was unsalted butter and skim milk. We even had some nice cultured butter for a while produced by one of the standard brands (pre-Lewis Road).

Homogenisation was introduced and we then had more varieties of low fat milk. Now we can also buy it with modifications concerning lactose. We have extra calcium milk also. We can also buy coconut, almond and soy milk.
Some people have access to raw milk and others use goats milk.

Silver top milk was reintroduced for a while but even that seemed to be a kind of reconstituted mixture rather than how it used to be. The cream that was found at the top didn't seem to be there naturally. It was hard as butter.

I wish we could still get some milk that was like the silver top as it used to be. Some recipes need the separating quality to succeed.

We do have cream variants such as fat reduced cream. Various versions of yoghurt, creme fraiche, cottage cheese and a few other similar items.
Cheese varieties have changed but let's be honest here, It doesn't taste the same as it did in the 1950s and 1960s. We must conclude the manufacturing, curing and aging processes are not as they were in this day of mass production and efficiencies.

So as a producer of mass milk based products and with all these mentioned variants and a lot more besides, how come, Fonterra doesn't produce and make more widely known, all the different varieties of cream that are called for in recipes from overseas?
We should be able to find easily products like clotted cream. double cream, single cream etc. I have however noted that whiipping cream is easy to locate in my local supermarket. these products could be clearly labelled to indicate for what they are designed.
Seriously, what is the reason that these recipe indicated products are not more prominently available given all the other products that they do make no?

I have always just used normal cream when recipe says "double cream", everything turns out the same so don't be to concerned about it!

this is my understanding

in the UK, there are two types of cream (or more).
single - with a fat content around 25%
and double - with a fat content around 48%

in NZ, the fat content of the product we call "cream" has a fat content of around 42-44%.

so if your recipe calls for double cream, then kiwi cream is the ideal product.

don't use "thickened cream" - that is a different product, and is thickened with geletine