Making Butter

We made the most delicious yellow butter as part of our inquiry learning unit on milk. We had a great time taste testing our butter on bread. Yum!

To make butter first pour cream into a jar.

 

Shake the jar firmly. Pass the jar on to the next person when your arms get tired. We practiced our counting while we were shaking the jar.

 Watch carefully and the particles of butterfat will start to stick together and separate from the buttermilk.

 Pour off the buttermilk and use a little water to rinse the butter.

 Spread the butter carefully with a knife - I found it interesting to see the different skills children had with a knife. We will definitely do some more cooking and food preparation and try to improve the children's confidence when using a knife.

We found out that cream that comes from cows that eat lots of grass will make the yellowest butter. Grass contains carotene which makes the butter yellow. Our butter was lovely and yellow.

We discovered that butter is not that hard to make at all. The children were fascinated with the process and the science behind it. Prior to making our butter we watched the video below and practiced our shaking technique, we wanted to be able to smash our particles of butterfat against the sides of the jar to make our butter as quickly as possible.

 

Check out this clip which explains how cream turns into butter.

Click here to see our cow portraits.