The biggest “test” for this Heavy Cream Powder, to me, was whether or not it could make butter and whether the butter (if it made any) would melt. I wanted to find out what this stuff was made out of. The container claims it’s a product with 72% butterfat…pretty unbelievable to me. Making butter would tell whether that was the truth or not.
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Again, here we have the two test subjects. I went with the Artistre brand for this test. From what I was able to look up (online, again there’s no mention of ingredients on the containers) the two both have what looks like the same ingredients.
I decided to mix 1:1. I used 1 cup Heavy Cream Powder to 1 cup water plus 1/4 tsp. salt for taste…
After beating — I kid you not — for 40 minutes (on high) I finally saw some signs of change…
At this point I transferred it all to a mason jar since it was too hard to keep all the splatters of butterfat in the base of the bowl where they could be whipped.
Shake shake shake… (30 minutes later)
Shake shake shake… (another 30-40 minutes later)
Keep on shaking…(my family is seriously losing faith in me at this point)
FINALLY!!!
It’s butter!!
I drained it and got ready to test my last big question…will it melt??
Into the pan…a little weird that it’s so foamy but it does melt.
A second or two later…still melting and still (somewhat) foamy.
All is melted (as much as it’s going to melt) and what’s left are some white….flakes? I’m guessing this is from the anti-caking additive in the powder.
And there you have it, my “butter” questions have been resolved.
I won’t be making butter from this powder probably ever again — (it took forever!)– but if someone was dying for butter it could be done. Oh, and for any of you wondering, from the 1 cup of powder used I ended up with probably 5 TBS of butter total. Now there’s some butter lovin’ elbow grease for ya!
More important, I feel like I have more confidence in the product itself (and how I’ll be able to use it) now that I’ve proven to myself what’s in it.
Why use this for butter when you can just buy cream or for that matter fresh butter. Only the nuts who live in bunkers awaiting the zombie apocalypse would need this stuff. I’m a pastry chef and we use this for flavor that we can’t get with liquid cream as we don’t want the excess moisture. I does not work as a creamer that well nor for whipped cream. You can make cream sauces with it such as Alfredo sauce, it works well for that, but save your money and just buy regular cream if you are not a baker.
I get your point, but I guess you might say this is one of those nutty preparedness sites you mentioned. While I’m not waiting for anything zombie related, if there’s a scarcity of basics my “bunker” will be my home, so I wanted to test out any other options in making butter. As it turned out, this wasn’t something I’ll ever do again, but it’s always worth a try to find out. Regular cream from the refrigerator section of the grocery store wouldn’t be an option if I’m trying to work with ingredients I can store long term.
I usually just lurk here, and print out recipes to try. But, I want to say “Thank you, for making preparedness minded folks look so normal that someone had to be told that they’re on one of “those” sights.” lol
I also want to thank Plicketycat for linking to Lehman’s. I live about 45 minutes from their store, and even though I’ve been there about a million times, I can still spend all day in there just looking around at stuff…Which brings me to a thought that I had the other night while fixing supper…For those of us who grew up around the Amish (if you don’t know who they are google them…they are the masters of living off-grid), a lot of the foods that we would consider “comfort foods” would probably be considered “food-storage” to people in other parts of the country. So, a good place to find even more recipes (as if you need any 🙂 ) to convert to food storage recipes might be an Amish or Mennonite cookbook…just a thought…
Thanks Chris, I take that as a sincere compliment 🙂
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Yes, unless you’re using the Red Feather as your everyday butter, it can be hard to use up the entire can before it starts getting fuzzy. I have found that putting a piece of aluminum foil over the top under a lid (a plastic lid for #2.5 can fits) helps keep it from getting moldy in the week it so it takes us to use a whole can up.
I haven’t tried to make butter from the Nestle canned table cream, but it may not come together since it’s been heated in the canning process which can mess with the fat and protein compositions. I know I have problems getting it to whip into stiff peaks, although it forms soft peaks readily enough. Wouldn’t hurt to give it a try for butter though. Of course, then you have an open can of cream you have to use up if you don’t use it all for butter. Although they cost a bit more, I normally get the 5oz cans of the cream so I don’t have to scramble to use it all before it goes bad like I do with the 12oz cans.
You know how bad I am about measuring 🙂 I normally just mix the powder into the water until it’s the thick consistency of real cream, but 1:1 sounds about right.
Well, keep in mind that it takes nearly 2.5 gallons of fresh unhomogenized milk to make one lb of butter, so this cream powder isn’t doing too bad a conversion!
You might see better results, or at least faster results, if you add the salt AFTER you’ve churned the butter and rinsed it, while you’re paddling out the air and excess liquid. You missed this final step and it’s probably why your butter was still all foamy.
The white flakes could have been anti-caking additive from the powder or the salt, I always use canning salt or cheesemakers salt for my butter which don’t have the anti-caking additive in them. The white flakes may also have been the milk proteins bound up by the salt (like cheese curds).
Your next powder test should be making real whipped cream. I know you can make whipped topping with NF powdered milk, but that totally pales in comparison to proper whipped cream especially as a topper for anything warm. NF milk whipped topping just slumps and turns to watery goo on a hot slice of pie 🙂
Thanks for your ideas. I wondered about that (adding the salt afterward) so I tried making a batch in my kitchenaid without salt and it took the same amount of time for any changes to be seen. I’m wondering if it’s the anti-caking in the powder that keeps it from coagulating (??)
I did consider rinsing it but wasn’t sure at that point, before I melted it, what it was made of exactly (due to how long it took) and whether all my hard work would dissolve into the water 😉
Yes, definitely, I think real whipped cream, or atleast “fortified” whipped cream would be a great one to try out. And in sauces as well as improving the flavor of milk. Thanks again for telling me about this product!
I admire your determination. I buy Shelf Reliance Butter Powder, Honestly it is much easier. I believe it has a 5 year Shelf Life and once it is open it is good for a year. Just add water to the consistance you want. To have butter for toast you have to refrigerate it a bit for better taste.
Thanks Cathy! I use Thrive’s butter powder (w/in recipes) a lot and I do like it although I’ve never tried it stand alone as butter. Does it melt?
How odd. I’ve churned butter from this before and it came together in about 45 minutes. But I’m churning by hand with a Dazey-style churn (rotary paddle — https://www.lehmans.com/p-4462-lehmans-own-butter-churn.aspx). I wonder if the electric mixer/blender is going too fast or beating in too much air which is inhibiting fat “globulation”. I also mixed up my cream and then let it sit at room temp in the pantry most of the day before churning, so maybe a bit of culturing helped as well.
Good thought, that could be it. 45 minutes sure beats the 2 hours plus.
I’ll be trying out the Nestle canned (liquid) cream to compare the two. I’d love to come up with a butter to use outside of the canned Red Feather brand #1 due to the expense of Red Feather, #2 because I hardly ever use the entire can at one time, and #3 because I’d love to have the versatility of cream that can be made to butter if needed but still useable for other things too.
Another question, any thoughts on the 1:1 mixture? Do you think it matters how much water it started out with?
How long does the product last in the original container?
Pam, I just opened an original (unopened) container that’s been in my pantry for 3 years and it’s fine. The cream powder I’ve been using for the past 1.5 years was good until I used it up… but I transferred the contents of the original canister into half-pint canning jars which I vacuum sealed with my FoodSaver and jar attachment.
It takes me about 3 months to use up the cup of powder in each of those jars, and the powder remained “fresh” as long as I put a good lid back on it to keep the humidity out and didn’t have the jar in direct sunlight or next to a heat source. The only jar that went funky on me had a bad lid and was stored in a cabinet next to window so it may have gotten too hot. Which is the second benefit to repacking a opened container into smaller sealed portions… if one goes bad, you still have the rest of them.