Monday, March 30, 2009

Butter!

I'm trying to minimize our role in spreading pink eye and other nasties around Eastern Massachusetts, so the girls and I are housebound today. By 8:30 a.m., Abby is already bouncing off the walls in boredom. So to expel some energy, have fun, and maybe learn something - we made butter this morning!

I'd heard of this project, so I grabbed some heavy cream and loosely followed instructions from PBS Kids. And Abby got a-shaking:


And it worked! We ended up with some buttermilk and some butter. We'll make pancakes or bread with the buttermilk later today:


You'll need:

heavy cream
container with a screw-on lid
cup to pour off buttermilk
kid with excess energy

Pour the heavy cream into your container. Shake. Shake a lot. When you don't hear sloshing anymore, check it out - whipped cream! Keep shaking. When it begins to thud, you'll see butter solids and liquid forming. I found it helpful to pour off the liquid after every few shakes to help the butter solidify quickly.

Serve it up on some bread for your little butter-maker!

(and wow, check out the comments on the PBS Kids instructions - some kids are harsh! "went very rong I hated it". Ouch! For the record, our butter doesn't stink at all. And we didn't hate it.)

3 comments:

Breana said...

I actually saw that on PBS kids too! SO funny! Perhaps I'll let Noah try it out!

Annette W. said...

I made butter with my 3rd graders one year...and loved the taste! I used cream, like you, but added a touch of salt. They were the perfect companion to Saltines.

Kara said...

I think a touch of salt may be a good thing - I didn't want to salt up the buttermilk that resulted, but the butter by itself could use it!