Homemade Butter

Making butter is one of the activities on our summer bucket list and we got to check that off this week.  This was so easy to do, and C and R were really amazed by the whole process.  If you have not made homemade butter before, this is how you do it:

First, put a clean marble in a clean pint sized glass jar with a screw-on top.  Then add half a pint of heavy cream and screw the cap on tight.

 R just had her hair cut the day of this photo.  Super cute, right?

Take turns shaking and shaking and shaking.  (Mom worried that someone would drop the glass jar!  Luckily, that did not happen.  Phew!  You can use plastic, but glass is recommended so that is what we used.)

C got a haircut too!

You will hear the marble for a while, but when you can't really hear it moving around anymore, your butter is almost finished.  Once you can see the glob of butter in the jar, pour out the buttermilk and wash the butter.  You wash the butter by rinsing cold water over it until the water is almost clear.  This will make your butter last longer.  Don't forget to remove the marble from your butter, and store your butter in the refrigerator.  The buttermilk you pour out can be used for another recipe.  I used our buttermilk to make apple pecan muffins!  Tomorrow, you will read about what we ate with our homemade butter!

Just in case you were wondering, I will tell you about the science behind making butter.  Cream or milk contains fat in the form of drops suspended in the liquid.  The reason this process works is that the shaking of the container forces the fat drops to come together and stick in the form of butter.  The marble stirs the liquid during the shaking, allowing more drops from different areas of the liquid to come together.

Remember to come back tomorrow to read about the super cool and yummy treat we made to eat with our butter!

I am linking this to Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.