Can you make cream?

Surprising but true, we cannot make cream without a cow! Yes, just like we cannot make apple without an apple tree or a coconut without a coconut tree, we are just helpless to make cream without a cow. The reason is that the cream is the butter-fat rich part that naturally comes on the top of non-homogenized cow’s milk. This is therefore not possible for us to make without the help of that particular ingredient. According to Wikipedia, “Cream produced by cows (particularly Jersey cattle) grazing on natural pasture often contains some natural carotenoid pigments derived from the plants they eat; this gives the cream a slight yellow tone, hence the name of the yellowish-white color cream. Cream from cows fed indoors, on grain or grain-based pellets, is white.”

Since the advancement in dairy industry allows cream to be separated from milk with the use of centrifuge (or separator), and in ancient tradition, it is done manually from the top of the pouring pan. We should not mix the concept of actual cream with that of evaporated milk which is thickened by removing its water content through evaporation. For single layer cream to be produced, it has to be collected from the top of the milk after 12 hours, whereas double layer is produced if it is not separated even after 24 hours.

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Originally published in Blurtit.com on 23rd September, 2006 03:12
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