Sour scream
You’ll need:
A wide mouth quart mason jar with a lid
2 cups of organic, grass-fed heavy cream or half ‘n’ half
2 tbsp of active culture plain yoghurt
½ tsp. of mesophilic culture or 2 tbsp. of active cultured buttermilk
Step by step directions
You can make sour cream at room temperature on the kitchen counter, but a better tasting and more active culture results from fermenting it overnight in a warm environment. This encourages the proliferation of both mesophilic and thermophilic lacto-bacteria, giving you more probiotics and more complex flavour for the same effort.
I use my electric oven, with the light bulb turned on, to get just the right temperature to actively ferment the cream.
Step 1: Clean and sanitize both the jar, the lid, and any utensil that will come in contact with the cream.
Step 2: Pour the cream into the sanitized jar. Using a sanitized spoon, stir in ½ tsp. of the powdered mesophilic culture or 2 tbsp. of the active cultured buttermilk, and 2 tbsp. of yoghurt. Stir well. Put the lid on the jar.
Step 3: Create a warm environment to culture the sour cream, as you would if your were culturing yoghurt. I place a 2 quart glass measuring cup in the oven and put about 1 litre of hot tap water into it. I place the covered jar in this and put it in my oven on the middle rack. I turn the oven light on and close the door. The oven maintains a temperature around 95 to 115 F which is ideal or dairy ferments.
Step 4: Leave the sour cream to ferment overnight – 8 to 12 hours. As it ferments it will thicken and the flavour will improve.
Step 5: Refrigerate the finished sour cream.
Use this as you would store bought sour cream on baked potatoes, in stroganoff, as an accompaniment to potato pancakes, as a base for dips or sauces. Once you’ve tasted active, probiotic rich, creamy homemade sour cream, you’ll never enjoy the commercial product again.