Making Whipped Cream and Butter

I like making whipped cream in the fall when there are homemade apple pies and Costco pumpkin pies. It tastes better because it is fresher, creamer, denser, and not as sweet as canned whipped cream.

To make whipped cream, you buy 1 quart of whipping cream in the milk section of the grocery store. Chill a mixing bowl and the egg beaters from your electric mixer, as this will help the process. Pour the whipping cream into the bowl and beat it until the whipping cream is the right consistency for you. You have the options of starting with a teaspoon of powdered sugar and adding more for your taste, and sometimes I add vanilla. Be careful not to over beat it, as that is how you end up with butter. Seriously.

Basically, you take heavy cream and you mix it for a long time, and you will get butter. Add a little salt, and that is all there is too it.

Making butter is very easy to do. I have memories of being a small child in pre-school and through early elementary school where my mother would come to school to talk about how good milk was for us to drink, and she would have us make butter. For the process to be a little more interesting for children, the heavy cream should be put into a large jar with something inside, and then the jar can be shook by the children or rolled across the floor. The item put inside helps add to the shaking process, and it could be marbles, a broken plastic fork, a clean plastic clothes pin, etc. This is a good hands on learning experience for children, with the added bonus of working a little extra energy off of them.

WikiHow appears to have decent pictures on this topic, but I wanted to share with you my childhood memories on making butter.