Commerial Sour Cream
Commercially made sour cream is made by injecting pure cream with a culture of bacteria that help its ferment. After its thickened it's pasteurized or sterilized to kill the bacteria. Commercial sour cream has no bacteria so you cannot use it to make your own at home.
Commercial sour cream contains about 18 to 20 percent fat. It often has additional ingredients like gelatin and vegetable enzymes. It is treated with lactic acid. Light commercial sour cream made from half and half has about 40 percent less fat. Reduced fat and nonfat sour cream is thickened with stabilizers and artificial flavors are often added to it. Some use nonfat dried milk, dried corn syrup and sugar. The fewer ingredients in sour cream the better the flavor.
Making Your Own Sour Cream
The ingredients you will need to make sour cream are one cup cream, 1 1/2 cups of whole milk and 1/2 cup buttermilk for the ingredients. You will need to boil some water in and pan and have two medium size bowls to work with. The bowls can be metal or plastic. Boil the water then put it into the first bowl in the sink. Put the second bowl over the first and mix all the ingredients in it. Use a wire whisk or spoon to stir the mixture. Using a food thermometer to measure the temperature of the mixture letting it reach 68 to 70 degrees when preparing it.
Cover the sour cream mixture with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours on the counter. Make sure it is thick and clings to a spoon after that. Keep it covered in the refrigerator until you want to use it. You can sterilize a large canning jar and let the mixture sit in there on the counter covered in the jar instead of a bowl. For a better texture refrigerate 24 hours before serving. Sour cream used to be made by letting fresh cream sour naturally. A bacterium that occurs in the sour cream caused the acid flavor that we are used to.
Homemade sour cream will last for one month in the refrigerator.
Uses of Sour Cream
Sour cream is often used in dips, salad dressings, sauces, and baking. It can be used as a condiment with meats, poultry and fish. It is important to never boil sour cream as it will curdle when using in recipes. To add to a very hot liquid remove from the heat then let stand for awhile. Add stirring with a wire whisk so it will blend in well. Remember that sour cream dishes do not freeze well. Cakes baked with sour cream sometimes have a metallic taste if baked in an aluminum pan. You can line the pan with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray to prevent this.
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