Chef's Choice Devon Cream
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.14 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Chef's Choice Devon Cream, 3 and 6%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 8 days.
Flavor Description: Take the thick mouthfeel of TPA Vanilla Swirl, some of the darker caramel notes from TPA Bavarian Cream (without that maple thing it can pick up), and some of the buttery richness of a custard. A cream for (most) seasons, basically.
The texture here is heavier and thick. It's almost chewy at higher percentages. Seems to have a lot in common with TPA Vanilla Swirl just in terms of the density and mouthfeel. It's cool to find something as chewy as Vanilla Swirl that actually has some richness and nuance to it.
I'm not getting a real heavy "milky" type of cream out of this. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of that kind of cheesy dairy note.
Overall this pretty heavily sweet. It has some medium-dark kind of caramel to it like tpa bavarian cream, but it doesn't cross into that kind of maple accent. I do get quite a bit of vanilla out this. I think the vanilla here is a brighter, almost frosting type vanilla, but that caramel sweetness makes it seem less one dimensional and a bit more complex.
I get some butter out of this, and FWIW it's dark enough that I want to say I should probably be tasting more. I don't pick up that kind of heavy egginess that I'd really expect from a custard, but I do pick up some pretty authentic tasting buttery rich notes. Tastes about as buttery to me as CAP VC1, but without the eggyness. I'd say INW Custard tastes a bit richer to me, but looking at the second opinions I might just not be picking up something that other people are.
Again, the noncontroversial consensus here is that this is rebottled cupcake world, but I picked it up from Chefs Flavours as part of their Chef's Choice line.
Off-flavors: Devon cream is supposed to be about half butterfat, and this doesn't taste quite that rich to me, but I'm admittedly pretty limited with custards. The second opinions talk about heavier custard notes but I don't really get eggy out of this and I'm not getting an overwhelming richness.
Throat Hit: Nah, not really.
Percentage testing: At 3% I'm getting pretty good texture, but not a lot of flavor. I feel like I can taste some of the VG underneath this. Some brighter vanilla and medium caramel top notes here, but I'm not getting too much in way of richness.
At 6% this is quite a bit richer. I'm getting some buttery notes here, and that base has filled in substantially. Vanilla is sticking out a lot less and blending better with that caramel note.
Chef's suggested usage of this is between 10-20% and that seems like maybe a bit of overkill. Just based on these tests I'd probably be using this as a primary note up to about 8%, a creamy background around 6%, and a cream booster around 4%. Just looking at the second opinions, you may run into some muting, but that kind of seems like a fit for the profile if you have a heavily creamy recipe.
Uses & Pairings: I'd guess there aren't a ton of cream applications that this wouldn't fit into. It doesn't have the eggyness of a custard for me, or any real heavy dairy notes in here so it should be relatively neutral most of the places where you'd want to stick a cream without making every taste too milky or eggy.
Probably includes all the normal fruit and cream nonsense.
I'd say this doesn't quite have the fattiness of FW Sweet Cream or CAP Vanilla Whipped Cream, so I'd probably skip the whipped cream type of applications.
Too flat of a texture for just a richness enhancer like CAP VC! or INW Custard.
Probably not a primary cream note if you actually want something like milk for a cereal. More of a cream booster in that application.
I could see this working really well to boost the volume in ice creams and custards.
Second Opinions: Here's the ELR Page for Cupcake World Devon Cream. User "cca" writes: "Use at the same % as TPA Bav Cream. More depth and butter than Bav Cream. Use at 1-3%." I think it's a bit weaker than that, but I haven't worked with extensively, so I could very well be wrong here. Another note from "TwoTone" who writes: "This is the Most amazing Cream i have tasted so far...dont use high % in a mix. You can use this as a Shake n Vape cream."
There's a post over on the EU ECR about some Cupcake World flavors. User "missflashheart" writes about devon cream: "This is easily the best choice to go for as an additive to other recipes. On its own, it's (obviously) creamy, rather sweeter than the actual foodstuff, and there's elements of vanilla in there too."
ATF has some recipes with Devon Cream. It looks like most of them are using small percentages of devon cream with additional creams, so I may be completely off the mark. User "SweetPoisonKim" uses it in their "Bang-a-meringue" recipe at 1.5% with the following note: "It's extremely eggy, more so than CAPs VCV1, so it's excellent for a meringue mix." I'm not great with custards, but I really don't pick up eggy notes from it, but there is a pretty solid butter to it.