Homemade Butter and Fun With Kids

I've been keeping a running list of things that I want to do with the kids over school breaks for the past few years.  It just seems to grow and grow!  Every time I mark off a park, museum, or activity I seem to add four more things in its place.

Lets just say we're never really at a loss for things to fill our time.

This afternoon we had an awkward bit of time between places we needed to be and my kids were sitting there lost in their electronics, oblivious to the world around them.

I decided to turn to the list to see what we could do with our time that might be a little more...engaging.

I found...drumroll please....BUTTER.

Butter?

Yes, butter.

Forever ago I added "Make butter" to my list of things to do with the kids- and I just happened to be running low on butter today too!  Making butter with a mixer or food processor is super easy but so is making it in a mason jar and I thought that might be a little more fun and get them moving.

So I decided to get them off their rear ends.

My son immediately stepped up on his little trampoline and started jumping like a crazy person while shaking his jar!  Success!

My daughter, in contrast, was excited right up until the moment when I told her it was time to shake the mason jar for 20 minutes.  Yep, that would be the moment her excitement waned...big time.

I told her to turn on some music and the next thing I knew we had a butter-making dance party going on in our living room.  There was a conga line around my couch!  An incredibly short conga line, yes, but a conga line nonetheless.

There was shaking, dancing, jumping, and cheering each other on for a solid twenty minutes- and the end result was butter!!!

Two ingredients.  Two active kids.

One big win.

How To Make Homemade Butter

From Allrecipes.com

2/3 C cold heavy whipping cream

Salt to taste (optional)

1 1-C canning jar with lid and ring

1 clean glass marble (optional)

1. Pour cream (and salt and marble if using) into the jar and screw on the lid. Shake jar until butter forms a soft lump, 15 to 20 minutes. Continue to shake until buttermilk separates out of the lump and the jar contains a solid lump of butter and liquid buttermilk.

2. Pour contents of the jar into a fine mesh strainer and strain out the buttermilk, leaving the solid butter. Remove marble if used.  Remove the lump of butter and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until needed.