Making Creme Fraiche

One of the things we have recently stopped buying is sour cream. Since getting into cheese making and checking out tons of books from the library we have found a few things that we really enjoy making and creme fraiche is one of them. I checked this book out but there are so many good recipes in there we had to own it for ourselves.

 Since you can get sour cream for $1 sometimes at the store its not cheaper to make but if you check on the price of creme fraiche and other higher end type things you will see its maybe a little cheaper to make and the taste is out of this world.

This is the recipe in the book and it works but we have found doing it a little different is just as good and we dont have to sit over a pan watching it to come to temp or worrying we have it up to temp or worrying about scorching the cream.

First you take a quart of heavy whipping cream , thats 32 ounces. and pour it into a jar. Then you set it in a pan of warm water to get it to 72 degrees. You will need some type of cooking thermometer for this. We have discovered in cheese making that temperature is everything. Take your two tablespoons of buttermilk and leave them out on the counter to get room temp. Once your cream get to 72 degrees add the buttermilk,stir and  put a lid on it sit it somewhere warm. The important part is thats its above 60 degrees. We had been sitting ours by a computer tower but since having the wood stove going we sit on a counter off to the side of the stove where the temp is around 72-75 degrees for most of the day and is around 65 while we sleep. In 18-24 hours you have creme fraiche. How easy is that?

To use as sour cream I just add a little salt to it before serving. If you wanted to use it on a dessert you could leave add a little powdered sugar to it before serving or leave as is and if you wanted to turn it into cultured butter just take the cream fraiche, however much you want to use, place it in a blender or food processor and in about 15 minutes it separates and you have butter. Just run cold water over the butter to get out any traces of the buttermilk or it will sour in a few days.

You can expect to see pics very soon of how we use creme fraiche. With this batch I will use half for sour cream and half for cultured butter.