Homemade Cheese: Sour Cream

The second cheese of the night at the cheesemaking workshop starts the process and concept of heating your milk product and adding a culture to change the cellular structure of the milk to create a new end product, sour cream! The cultures are easily purchased and I will give you a link to the online location to get the particular culture required. All the cultures are stored in the freezer in small packages and will last up to 24 months.

For Sour Cream you will also learn about the process of incubation. (to maintain (as in a chemically active system) under conditions favorable for development or reaction). We are hoping to maintain the warmth of the milk so that the culture will develop the enzyme reaction that will change the milk to sour cream. A lot of big words for a simple process of souring the milk to make sour cream.

Flora Danica is the culture that you will be adding and comes in packets or sachets. Each sachet contains enough culture to inoculate 2 gallons of milk. Since this fresh version of sour cream only last a week or so in your fridge we are doing sour cream in small batches.

This fresh sour cream is fantastic on baked potatoes and works great for flavoring soups, sauces, and dips.

Sour Cream
Richer version:
2 cups whipping cream

2 cups half and half

or

Less fat version:
4 cups half and half

1/8 tsp. of Flora Danica culture

Heat milk to 86 degrees using a thermometer. You can use either a stick or digital thermometer.
Add culture (Flora Danica) stirring in an up and down motion with a slotted spoon for about two minutes.
Ladle the hot milk into 2 pint size hot jars and find a warm location to keep them for 12 hours or overnight until it is the desired consistency you like. It should be thick like a sauce.  Once you have the thickness you want you can chill the jar in the fridge and it will firm up a bit more.

 
 















This sour cream will last in a fridge for about a week. Use a clean spoon and don't dip chips directly into the jar unless you plan on eating the whole thing!