Food & Fun Recipes

Butter

Ingredients

• pasteurized heavy whipping cream at room temperature (one pint for 18-20 students)
• condiment cups with lids (Ask at fast food restaurants. Clear containers work best.
• container for pouring off buttermilk

Instruction

1. Fill condiment container about ½ full of whipping cream, and fasten lid securely.
2. Tell students to shake horizontally to prevent leakage.
3. Warn students to keep the lid on the container until the butter is ready and to keep the container moving at all times.
4. Have students pour the liquid off the butter into a container. Explain that the liquid is actually buttermilk.
5. Provide crackers or stick pretzels for students to enjoy with their butter or serve with biscuits or cornbread.

Have students chant the following rhyme as they shake. Go around the group, replacing "Mary" with the name of each student in turn:

• Butter, butter, shake, shake, shake
• Mary's waiting at the gate
• Mary's waiting for her cake
• Butter, butter, shake, shake, shake.

Explain

The butter goes through three stages. It starts as a liquid. Ask students if they can hear the sloshing sounds. Then it stops sloshing because it has become a solid. Finally, after the participles of fat and milk solids stick together, the solution separates and become solid and liquid. Students should be able to hear a sloshing sound and the butter thumping against the side of the container.