Homemade Sour Cream

Homemade sour cream is ridiculously easy to make. Yet, nobody does it. Well, I'd like to change that! :) I love using fresh, local cream to make delicious, better-than-store-bought sour cream. People are amazed at how good it is, when they taste it! And when I tell them how simple it is to make, they almost don't believe me. So, here it is!

Get yourself some lovely local cream. Yes, you can use whole milk, or half and half if you like, but cream is SO much better.

You will also need sour cream starter, it comes in little packets. I get mine from cheesemaking.com.

Gently heat 1 quart of milk to 86 degrees. Watch closely, as this doesn't take long. I have, more than once, accidentally overheated it a bit. When this happens, I just let it cool to 86 degrees, and proceed. It seems to work fine.

Then remove from heat, stir in one packet of sour cream starter, pour into a covered container (2 glass pint jars with lids works beautifully), and let sit at room temp for 12-24 hours or until it is a consistency that you like. I like mine really thick. :)

That's IT. Refrigerate, and eat. It is DIVINE.

Culturing your own dairy products is always interesting - sometimes the cream turns out better than others (it's always good, sometimes it's just even better!).  Jill Burkhart, owner of Picket Fence Creamery, has found the same thing - when making her butter, ice cream, and cheese curds, she finds seasonal variations in the texture, color, and consistency of her dairy products. She says that in her opinion, it's all just a mixture of weather, time of year, food, what the grass is like, and the "mood" of the herd. Isn't that beautiful and interesting?