This all started as a way to teach Eli how butter is made and to have Eli learn a small science lesson as well. It turned out to be a delicious day of treats.
Making BUTTER is so easy and only requires 2 ingredients:
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• Salt to taste (just a few pinches will work; not much at all)
Pour the 1 cup of heavy cream in a bowl and whip using a hand held mixer. The cream with thicken into whipped cream consistency and will form firm peaks; then keep whipping and suddenly the cream will turn into what looks like cottage cheese. Keep whipping – soon the cream separates into a solid (the butter) and a liquid (the buttermilk). Keeping mixing for about 10 seconds after this happens to make sure it all separates. Using a spatula push the butter into a lump and pour off the buttermilk (into a container to save). You will now have to rinse the butter; if you don’t rinse any excess buttermilk – the butter will go rancid quickly. To rinse, add a little ice water to the butter in the bowl and beat for 10 seconds. Drain and repeat a few times until the water is clear. Now add salt to taste.
Here is a short recap of the science behind butter:
Heavy cream is an emulsion. The fat is spread throughout the cream in very tiny drops. The protein in the milk acts as an emulsifying agent; it keeps the fat droplets suspended. When you shake the cream you force the fat droplets to come together. If they come together with enough force, they'll stick to each other and keep forming bigger and bigger gobs until you've got butter.
Now for the buttermilk. FYI by using a cup of cream to make the butter, you should get ¼ to ½ cup buttermilk.
BUTTERMILK RANCH DRESSING:
• 1 cup Mayonnaise
• ¼ cup Sour Cream
• ¼ cup Buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon Garlic powder
• Fresh or dried herbs ( we used Rosemary and Dill from our herb garden)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
Just mix all the ingredients together; add more mayonnaise if you would like it to be thicker.
BUTTERMILK BISCUITS:
• 2 ¼ cups Bisquick
• 2/3 cups buttermilk
Heat oven to 450. Stir ingredients until soft dough forms. Place on surface sprinkled with Bisquick mix. Knead 10 times. Roll dough ½ inch thick. Cut with 2 ½ inch cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.
And then we made the yummy WHIPPED CREAM:
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
Add all ingredients in bowl and whip quickly either by hand with a whisk or by using a hand mixer until soft peaks form (if using a mixer – make sure you don’t over whip as the cream will curdle).
Now we really lived it up and I cut a buttermilk biscuit in ½, put some fresh strawberries on top and then topped with whipped cream. On the other half of the biscuit, we let the fresh butter melt – yummy.
We had a little more of the heavy cream left, so we made one bonus treat - ICE CREAM. Now this is a very simple, very light delicate ice cream.
• ½ cup of heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon of vanilla
Simply put all the ingredients in a small Ziploc bag. Seal very well (you could even double bag the cream so that it doesn’t leak) and make sure all extra air is squished out of the bag (if the bag is filled with extra air, it may pop during the next step). Then put that small Ziploc bag in a gallon Ziploc bag. Fill the larger bag with ice and sprinkle the ice cubes with 4 tablespoons salt. Wrap the bag in a towel and shake it around, making sure the ice keeps the inner bag covered. It should take the cream about 5 to 10 minutes to freeze – so keep SHAKING.
The science behind Ice Cream:
When the ice melts it takes heat energy from the warm cream and in turn makes the cream get colder…the salt lowers the freezing point of the ice and this makes the ice melt faster and cools down the cream mixture faster as well. The water in the cream freezes and forms ice crystals and viola – ice cream.
