Cream and velouté soups are flavored versions of béchamel and velouté but prepared to be thinner. 

In the past there were two basic methods were used to prepare cream soups. Cream soups were made with a béchamel sauce combined with the appropriate puree and thickened with cream.  the second type of soup was made with a velouté sauce combined with a liaison and butter.  Today in the modern kitchen with the availability of different flours and thickening agents, cream soups are prepared by one method, all called cream soups.

Quality in cream soups is based on:

The preparation of creams and velouté are basically the same.  The velouté if finished with a liaison where as the cream soup is finished with just cream.

Voulute Soups have four main components

Cream Soups share many of the same ingredients of velouté soups but their consistency is much richer and are similar or different in the following ways.