Home science: turning cream into butter

Want to make butter at home? It’ll only take a few minutes!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Warn­ing! Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.

Equip­ment

  • cream (at least 30% fat);
  • whisk;
  • jug;
  • re­frig­er­a­tor.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Pour some cream into a jug and leave it and a whisk in the re­frig­er­a­tor for half an hour. Then beat the cream with the whisk for a few min­utes – the cream grad­u­al­ly turns yel­low and thick­ens, form­ing but­ter.

Process de­scrip­tion

Cream con­tains many droplets of fat. Each droplet con­sists of milk fat and spe­cial sub­stances that make the walls of the droplets strong. Such sub­stances are called phos­pho­lipids. When cooled, the milk fat par­tial­ly freezes, form­ing sharp crys­tals that tear the walls of the droplets. This al­lows the droplets to stick to­geth­er. For the droplets to col­lide more of­ten, the cream must be in­ten­sive­ly beat­en. In just a few min­utes, most of the droplets will com­bine to form your home­made but­ter!

Cool and safe ex­per­i­ments await you in the MEL Chem­istry sub­scrip­tion!

Try it