{"id":9289,"date":"2011-07-07T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T13:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankymouse.com\/?p=9289"},"modified":"2011-07-08T12:17:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T17:17:12","slug":"food-science-camp-how-to-make-butter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/07\/food-science-camp-how-to-make-butter\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Science Camp: How to Make Butter"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re having weekly Food Science Camps here in an effort to create our own bit of learning this summer. Today’s lesson is on how to make butter by shaking cream in a jar. The kids all got in on the shaking action, making butter for the next morning’s breakfast.<\/em>
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\nSummer, with its sticky air and bright sun can serve to make us enjoy the outside space, but it can also cause a frenzied state of affairs. When the air is thick it can be hard to motivate myself to do the daily things that need doing: sweeping, watering the garden, putting laundry away and toiling over a sink full of hot water and dirty dishes. (Broken dishwasher. Sob.)
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Add to my own toils four kids who would always rather be playing somewhere else or doing something else, and we have a recipe for disaster. There are arguments between siblings. There is a general disregard for the things that need to happen like the making of beds and the putting away of clothes. Tasks like remembering to grab a towel before we run from the pool to the bathroom all the way through the house with grass-covered feet and water dripping from every inch of our body become too difficult to grasp. There are days when they just want to sit and proclaim their state of summer boredom, cry at the sight of mosquito bites and refuse to do anything productive.
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To prevent the summer sadness, the outcry of being hot and sticky all the time, I’ve started with our own brand of educational activities that we’re calling Food Science Camp. The kids will create, a lesson will be told and we’ll all be better off for it. Combined with a healthy dose of summer reading motivation thanks to our public library and a newly instituted Daily 5 Chore Chart, we may survive summer yet.
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Last week’s lesson involved the making of ice cream<\/a> (check it out on Food Your Way). It was a particularly hot day, and the hope of slipping into the pool was nil due to a cluster of thunderstorms approaching. We shook up our ice cream with our hands, learning how adding salt to the ice would help the ice cream to freeze.
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The Science Behind Butter:<\/h3>\n

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\nThis week we made our own butter. We started with some cream that was just slightly past its use-by date. It had started to smell faintly sour, but not too much. We let it sit to get warm. Leaving the cream out to sour or using cream that has already soured helps bacteria create lactic acid, which is what gives it the sour smell and taste<\/strong>. You can also culture your cream by adding a spoonful or two of yogurt or buttermilk with live cultures to your cream and letting it come to room temperature. Culturing your cream gives butter a rich, full flavor.
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Note: It’s not necessary to let it sit to complete the experiment. You can pull it directly out of your fridge and dump it in a jar. I tried to be sure this worked, and it did with just a bit more shaking.
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\nButter is filled with butter fat globs surrounded by membranes. The lactic acid serves to weaken those membranes until they pop and let the butter fat get together to form the butter and the buttermilk separating off.
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\nShake slowly and deliberately. With the kids, I have them grab the neck of the jar and shake up and down, up and down. Some of them can manage this better than others, but they all had a go at it.
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My friend Shari from Tickled Red<\/a> sent this cast cover for Kjell. It’s pretty much the best thing ever from a super sweet redhead. Thank you!
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\nAfter 3-5 minutes the cream will stop coating the jar and start separating into whey and butter. After this starts, it should only take a few more forceful shakes to get the butter to clump together. Let it stand for a minute, and then pour off the buttermilk into a cup. (Biscuits, anyone?) Did you know the yellow color in butter comes from carotene and cows that are eating grass. Your butter will be a different color depending on what type of cream you use and whether those cows were grass or corn fed.
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At this point, you can use the butter, but to make it last longer, rinse it and knead it with ice cold water to get any leftover milk off it, which would spoil in the fridge. (You can pour ice water into the jar and shake it for this.) Continue rinsing until the water is clear.
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\nAll that is left is to salt your butter and enjoy. Sylvie from Gourmande in the Kitchen just did a cultured butter post earlier this week and made blackberry honey butter<\/a>, which looks like the perfect breakfast.
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\nLooking for more? So far in Food Science Camp we’ve made butter in a jar and ice cream in a bag<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Homemade Butter<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/td>\n

Print me!<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
\n2 cups heavy cream
\n1-2 cups ice water
\nsea salt to taste, optional
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Place cream on the counter for 8-12 hours. It is easiest to use cream that is just slightly souring. If your cream is not yet turning, let it sit on the counter for 12 hours to allow bacteria to form lactic acid or add a spoonful of yogurt or buttermilk with live cultures to the cream prior to letting it sit to culture it.
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Pour cream into a quart-size canning jar. Begin shaking with slow, deliberate shakes until cream first starts coating the jar, becomes thick like whipping cream and then starts to pull away from the sides, turning to two substances: buttermilk and butter. Let the jar sit for one minute and then pour off the buttermilk into a separate glass.
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Pour ice water into the butter to wash it, kneading with hand or stirring to remove any milk, strain off land repeat until water is clear. Strain to leave only the butter in the jar. Stir in salt, if desired. Use immediately or refrigerate until ready to use.
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\nMakes approximately 1\/2 cup butter<\/em>
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We’re having weekly Food Science Camps here in an effort to create our own bit of learning this summer. Today’s lesson is on how to make butter by shaking cream in a jar. The kids all got in on the shaking action, making butter for the next morning’s breakfast. Summer, with its sticky air and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[337,10],"tags":[121,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-9289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-pantry","7":"category-recipes","8":"tag-butter","9":"tag-food-science-camp","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"mv":{"thumbnail_id":null,"thumbnail_uri":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9289"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9395,"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289\/revisions\/9395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}