Sour Cream

[Neko-chan]

Sour Cream as we know it today is cultured, yes? Is it possible to make your own cultured sour cream? Would it be like making yogurt (but with cream)? I'm interested, because I love sour cream, and would like to not have to buy it, because a small container can be stupidly pricey.

 

[TanksHill]

I have replaced sour cream many times with strained yogurt. I also like strained kefir but it sometimes is to strong for my family.

I have no idea how to make real sour cream.

g

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Cultures For Health has what you need
http://www.culturesforhealth.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=sour+cream

 

[Neko-chan]

That is so cool. And they ship everywhere.

Thanks!

 

[ORChick]

I make a very acceptable cultured sour cream by just making yogurt with 1/2 and 1/2 instead of milk. This may not be the "right" way, but to me it tastes the same. If you look at the fat content of storebought sour cream you'll see that 1/2 and 1/2 is just about right; when I first made it I thought I was saving calories You could make it with cream, but that might be overkill.

 

[Our7Wonders]

I'm new at this so I could be wrong, but I believe sour cream is basically cultured buttermilk, but made with cream instead of milk. Directions are the same for sour cream as they are for buttermilk and both use the same culture. So if you have, say, a pint of cream you'd add about a half cup of buttermilk to it and let it culture at room temperature for about 24 hours (give or take a little depending on your house temperature - then you'd have sour cream.

Now, I would imagine, just as you can culture buttermilk with existing buttermilk, you could likely culture sour cream with a little of a current batch of sour cream - makes sense to me anyway.

 

[Marianne]

The other day I wanted sour cream but didn't have any. I fell back on the old mock sour cream recipe that I hadn't made in 25 years:

1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup skim milk

Mix cottage cheese, lemon juice and milk in blender until smooth. Keeps in refrigerator for a week.

 

[Leta]

Echoing the above. We use homemade Greek style yogurt instead of sour cream. Storebought sour cream tastes weird to me now.

 

[Neko-chan]

Thanks for all that.

I think the sour cream culture comes with 8 packets of starter, I'm assuming), and will cost me about 20 bucks to have it shipped down here. As soon as I get my bank straightened about my online account access (grr) then I'll give it a go.

 

[mydakota]

You can get the cultures for sour cream in the Caprine Supply catalog. It is an awesome catalog/website if you have goats or make cheese.