PopLab: Mason Jar Butter

How long does it take to make your own butter? We partnered with our friends at the Niantic Farmers Market (opening June 18) to find out! Be sure to tune into PoPLab every Saturday on our Facebook page! And don’t forget to visit the Niantic Farmers Market this season!

Messy level: 1
(5 = Super messy. 1 = Not messy at all.)

Materials

• Heavy Cream
• Salt
• Mason jar with lid
• Fine-mesh strainer

Instructions

1. Pour cream into mason jar. You need plenty of room for shaking, so we recommend filling only by 1/3.

2. Add a pinch of salt to taste.

3. Shake! Shake! Shake! The faster you shake, the sooner you’ll have butter. It took us just under 10 minutes.

4. Stop once you see the cream separate and form large solid chunks.

5. Strain away the buttermilk (the leftover liquid). You can save this for later recipes.

6. You now have butter! (And probably sore arms and/or a tired child, but it was worth it.)

What we learned

1. They’ll come a point where you won’t hear noises coming from you mason jar, that’s the whipped cream stage of this experiment. Keep going if you want butter. (Stop if you’d like some nice heavy whipped cream.)

2. We would recommend downsizing to a baby food jar for little children. Still fill only 1/3 or halfway. Shaking the mason jar for too long may frustrate littles’ attention spans.

3. Butter seems to form faster with room temperature cream.