In vain she tries her paste and creams,
To smooth her skin or hide its seams.
Goldsmith.
5. The best or choicest part of a thing; the quintessence; as, the cream of a jest or story; the cream of a collection of books or pictures.
Welcome, O flower and cream of knights errant.
Shelton.
Bavarian cream, a preparation of gelatin, cream, sugar, and eggs, whipped; -- to be eaten cold. -- Cold cream, an ointment made of white wax, almond oil, rose water, and borax, and used as a salve for the hands and lips. -- Cream cheese, a kind of cheese made from curd from which the cream has not been taken off, or to which cream has been added. -- Cream gauge, an instrument to test milk, being usually a graduated glass tube in which the milk is placed for the cream to rise. -- Cream nut, the Brazil nut. -- Cream of lime. (a) A scum of calcium carbonate which forms on a solution of milk of lime from the carbon dioxide of the air. (b) A thick creamy emulsion of lime in water. -- Cream of tartar (Chem.), purified tartar or argol; so called because of the crust of crystals which forms on the surface of the liquor in the process of purification by recrystallization. It is a white crystalline substance, with a gritty acid taste, and is used very largely as an ingredient of baking powders; -- called also potassium bitartrate, acid potassium tartrate, etc.
Cream, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Creamed (kr?md); p. pr. & vb. n. Creaming.] 1. To skim, or take off by skimming, as cream.