by Brie I like the idea of making things from scratch. I really like the idea of making easy things from scratch. My new favorite easy thing to make? Butter.

Yup, you heard right. Butter. And I am making it the easy way. No wooden butter churn for me. All you need to make butter are two marbles, a clean baby food jar and some heavy cream (i.e. whipping cream). Oh, and a lot of muscle.

The three-year old girl and I had some fun one afternoon making butter while her brother napped. She plopped two marbled into the jar and then filled up the jar half way with cream. I screwed the lit on very, very tight. Then the shaking began.

I wish I could tell you that she did most of the shaking, but well, that would be lying. Instead she would do a little shaking and then hand the jar back to me to do a lot of shaking. So I shook and shook and shook.

After awhile I couldn't hear the marbles rattling around anymore. I thought this is it! So I opened the jar and found...whipping cream. Convinced that I had somehow done something wrong, like buy the wrong cream, I let the girl eat four crackers spread with whipping cream. She loved it.

While she ate I sat there thinking. Finally I decided to try shaking the jar some more. And what do you know! I heard a distinct slosh sound and what had been whipping cream suddenly split into butter and whey. Success!

The girl ate another four crackers, this time topped with butter. I used the butter in my cooking the next day. Really, the butter is very yummy. After eating it you will want to make butter all the time.

The best part, though, was making something from scratch and showing the girl how butter can easily be homemade.

Brie is the mom of a 3.5 year old daughter “the girl” and twenty-two month old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.