All this heat has me ready for summer to end!  Well, kind of, I love summer so let’s cool off with Summer Science Cold! where we will make a couple of cold treats to enjoy and hopefully cool us off.

I love summer but after several months of really hot weather it starts to not be as enjoyable.  Enjoying some cooling treats helps a lot though.  With this week’s summer science we are going to make homemade ice cream and homemade butter.  Who doesn’t love ice cream and watching it form right before your eyes your kids will be amazed and then enjoy eating ice cream they actually made.  Butter is a little bit of a stretch, yes it is cold but I served it over nice warm homemade bread but it still was fantastic to make and homemade butter seems to always taste better.

Homemade ice cream!  This is where Summer Science Cold actually gets really cold. Ice cream is one of my favorite treats and with homemade ice cream I like how it is not super hard but it also is easier to get a brain freeze!  With ice cream explain to your kids how freezing works.  By filling the bag with ice and also salt the salt helps make the ice even colder causing the milk to freeze.

Supplies:

• Gallon size freezer bag
• About 6 tablespoons Salt (I use rock salt which is available at grocery stores)
• Ice enough to fill a gallon bag
• Sandwich bag
• ½ cup Milk
• ½ teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 ½ tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon Chocolate syrup, or cocoa powder for chocolate ice cream. (optional)
• Toppings!

Directions:

1. In the sandwich bag mix together milk, vanilla, and sugar. (chocolate syrup or cocoa if desired).
2. Seal the sandwich bag really well (we placed the sandwich bag into another sandwich bag just in case it broke) and place into the gallon bag.
3. Fill the gallon bag with ice and pour salt over.  Seal.
4. Shake!  You might want gloves or a towel because it does get really cold!
5. Shake until the milk mixture is solid or at least ice cream like, scoop out of the bag and enjoy!

Homemade Butter will show your kiddos how cream goes through different stages to become butter and how to make it themselves.  This experiment only involves a few simple ingredients, some muscle power, and you’ll have amazing tasting butter to enjoy! With this experiment I also made my homemade braided bread to go with the butter.  Bread is also a great experiment to show how yeast rises and expands bread.

Supplies:

• 1 pint Heavy whipping cream (room temperature)
• Mason jar
• 2 marbles (optional)
• Medium sized bowl
• Salt (optional)

Directions:

1. Fill a mason jar only about half way with the heavy whipping cream making sure there’s enough room for it to slosh around.  Having the cream at room temperature helps it become butter a little faster.
2. Place 2 marbles in the jar, if you are worried about breaking the jars then you can leave them out, I didn’t have any problems and we shook them really hard.
3. Screw the lid on tight!
4. Shake!
5. After a couple minutes it’ll stop sloshing and seem more solid, if you open the jar you will find whipped cream!
6. Seal the lid again and Shake!
7. It’ll get harder and little ones might need some help shaking it. The whipped cream will start the change into what looks like curdled milk.
8. Shake until you see the buttermilk beginning the separate out and there’s a solid mass of butter.
9. Remove from jar and place in a bowl.  Remove marbles.
10. Pour a cup of cold water into the bowl and knead out the butter milk rinsing every now and then until water becomes clear.  Once rinsed add a little salt if you want and enjoy!

Who knew shaking butter could be so fun!  They were having contests of who could shake the longest!