how to make sour cream

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Hi, I buy fresh milk from a man down the road. I make my own butter, but how can I make sour cream? Thanks for the help Mary

-- Mary Fraley (kmfraley@orwell.net), November 13, 2000

Answers

A quick replacement for sour cream is sour milk. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice to a cup of whole milk and let it sit out on the counter for about 10 min. When using in a recipe, reduce measure by 1/3 to compensate for the lack of cream thickness.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 13, 2000.

Gosh, I wasn't going to respond to this since I seldom make sour cream (I use yogurt instead), but I only see a recipe for a substitute, and I have made it, so here I go. If your milk is unpasturized, you simply separate some of the cream, letting it sit at room temp for a few days. To hasten the process, add a spoonful (or so) of bought sour cream. As Emeril Lagasse says "it ain't rocket science", but it can pick up off-flavors or icky bacteria if they are nearby. Good luck!

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), November 13, 2000.

I'm going along with Leslie. Clean cream in a clean container. A little fresh, real sour cream from the store stirred in with a clean spoon. A clean lid. A day or two on the kitchen counter. There you go! (72 degrees is about the optimum incubation temperature for the bacteria that make sour cream. A couple degrees either way won't matter. FYI, it's the same bacteria as cultured buttermilk, so that would do as well for a starter.)

-- Laura Jensen (lrjensen@nwlink.com), November 13, 2000.

Ummm.... This is going to sound incredibly stupid, but, how do you tell when sour cream goes bad and isnt safe to eat anymore? (other than green stuff growing on it)

I've always wondered about that and figure if anybody would know you- all would. Currently I just throw it out after a couple of weeks in the fridge. I've had a majestic case of food poisoning once (I was hallucinating and had a 106 temp for two days) and Im more than a little paranoid about it.

Thanks!

Dave

-- Dave (AK) (daveh@ecosse.net), November 14, 2000.


Thanks for all the ideas, but I'm concerned about bad bacteria growing as well as the good. When I make yogurt, I heat up the milk and then slowly let it cool to 80 degrees and then keep it warm to get the yogurt started. With sour cream, you don't need to heat up the cream first? I don't want to make us all sick!

-- Mary Fraley (kmfraley@orwell.net), November 14, 2000.


Mary, I am no bacteria guru, but I do know this: cream soured in the presence of bad becteria smells and tastes bad while cream soured in the presence of good bacteria smells and tastes good. I also know that if your cream is very fresh and contains good bacteria (pasturized cream without a starter would not), and if your utensils are scrupulously clean, as Laura pointed out, then you can certainly make good sour cream at room temperature. However, I cannot say if heating it would speed the process. If you try it, let us know how long it took you!

Eventually, bad bacteria will prevail, and Dave, even though the cream is "sour", if it's fresh it will smell fresh, if it's not, it will smell bad or off. And if it's GREEN, well heck, then it's been bad for a long time! Been there done that ;)

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), November 14, 2000.


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