MAKE & COLLABORATE: HANDMADE BUTTER IN A JAR

A project from Edible Inventions: Cooking Hacks and Yummy Recipes You Can Build, Mix, Bake, and Grow Project: g Handmade Butter in a Jar

c Materials 1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream (whipping cream also works, but the resulting buter may stay sof) Narrow plastic or glass jar with tight-fting lid, big enough to hold about 2 cups (a shaker botle with a handle and a spout works well) Optional: Plastic wrap Optional: Bowl of warm water Bowl of cold water FIGURE 1-4: Real buter is great all on its own.

Take some cream and shake it up for awhile, and the fat globules will stick together and foam up with air bubbles. (This is how you make whipped cream.) Keep mixing and the fat globules suddenly burst and clump together. Shazam! You’ve got buter. The thin watery liquid lef over is known as butermilk. Drinking it is a treat—it has a smooth, butery favor, even though the fat has been removed. It’s diferent than the stuf that passes for butermilk that you buy in a store, which is just low-fat milk with acid added to it to make it thick and tangy. Traditional butermilk (or the cream it was made from) was lef to sit for a while to allow it to ferment, which means allowing friendly bac- teria cultures to grow and produce acid naturally. (The same process is used to turn milk into yogurt—see Chapter 5 for a recipe.) Store-bought buter- milk is ofen used to make pancakes or biscuits because the acid combines with other ingredients to make baked goods rise. (See Chapters 2 and 3 for more on cooking chemistry.)

P4 Edible Inventions: Cooking Hacks and Yummy Recipes You Can Build, Mix, Bake, and Grow

452099book.indb 4 8/14/16 5:30 PM For best results when making your own buter, look for cream without any added ingredients. Additives like carrageenan prevent the fat from separating out, but now we want the fat to separate! Locally produced or organic cream may also have a higher fat content, which will also make your buter extra-rich. 1. Pour the cream into the jar and close the lid. If the lid isn’t completely spill-proof, cover the opening frst with a piece of plastic wrap and then screw on the lid. Let the jar sit out until it the cream is room temperature. (You can speed things up by placing the jar in a bowl of warm water.) 2. Now shake the jar! That’s it. The shaking process can take anywhere from fve minutes to half an hour. It depends on the cream, the container, and how strong your arm is (or how many friends you have to help you). As you shake, you’re mix- ing in air that makes the cream thick. (Add sugar at this point and you have whipped cream!) 3. Keep shaking until you start to hear and feel something thunking against the inside of the jar. Take a peek inside. If you see a large yellowish ball FIGURE 1-5: The handle on this cup makes it easier to shake. foating in some pale liquid, the fat has separated out from the butermilk. 4. Pour the butermilk into a clean glass to drink or use in baking. To help the buter stay fresh longer, remove as much of the remaining butermilk as

you can. Fill a bowl with ice- FIGURE 1-6: The buter has “seized” and cold water and dunk the buter formed itself into a yellow clump.

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452099book.indb 5 8/14/16 5:30 PM ball. The cold water will make the buter harden quickly and rinse away any butermilk still clinging to the ball. Pour out the cloudy water and repeat once or twice until the water runs mostly clear. 5. Store the buter in an airtight container. It will keep it in the refrigerator for a couple weeks. FIGURE 1-7: Dunk the buter in water to 6. Extension: To make favored rinse of the butermilk. compound buter, trying adding some of the following ingredients while the buter is still warm and sof: Basil Garlic Chives Honey Maple syrup Cinnamon Strawberry jam Orange marmalade FIGURE 1-8: Mix in honey or other favorings Sweetened cocoa to make compound buter.

P6 Edible Inventions: Cooking Hacks and Yummy Recipes You Can Build, Mix, Bake, and Grow

452099book.indb 6 8/14/16 5:30 PM O SuPEr SPEEDy BuTTEr In A BoTTlE

The traditional way of making butter in a glass jar can take 20 minutes of shaking or more. Using a lightweight plastic jar can cut that time in half (per- haps because it’s lighter and your arm doesn’t get tired as quickly). But a simple trick can shrink shaking time to just a minute or two. All you need is an empty water bottle (the kind with ridges around the middle), a sharp knife, and, if you’re a kid, an adult to help with the knife. Pour the cream into the bottle and follow the directions for the Butter in a Jar project. The ridges on the water bottle help break up the fat globules faster than the straight, smooth sides of a jar. When the buttermilk has separated from the fat, turn the bottle over and let the thin liquid pour out the spout. Then, use the knife to cut off the bottom of the bottle so you can get the ball of butter out. It’s FIGURE 1-9: Look for a water botle with that easy! ridges.

FIGURE 1-10: Be careful cuting the buter out of the botle.

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