Background: I love sour cream. Always have, always will. Here’s how to make it yourself.
- Get three sanitized glass jars with lids
- Get a 16 oz. container of sour cream.
- Split the sour cream across the three jars.
- Mix half and half and heavy cream at a ratio of 1:1.
- Pour the mixture over the sour cream in the jars.
- Shake or stir the jars.
- Leave the jars on the counter.
- Check in 24 hours. If it’s not the thickness you’d like, let it go for 24 more hours.
- Put them in the fridge with one at the way back, one in the middle, and one toward the front.
- When you get to the jar in the back, make a new batch repeating the process with the “homemade sour cream” as the starter.
Why It Works
- You want glass so you can sanitize well, see the progress, and shake the jars.
- You can use whatever sour cream you want.
- This is your starter.
- You could use straight cream, but cutting it with half and half is more economical.
- The more sour cream to half and half and cream mix you have, the quicker it will thicken.
- This is to disperse the cultures.
- The cultures will start to multiply rapidly at room temperature.
- If it doesn’t thicken up after 48 hours, add more sour cream or change the location.
- This allows you to rotate your stock of sour cream and remind yourself when to make another batch. You could label the lids in the event that they get jostled out of order.
- This is, grossly, called back-slopping, which is also exactly what it sounds like.
Mods:
- Use a fancier “cultured” sour cream, which has a slightly different flavor. (There are cultures in all of them so it’s mostly marketing.)
- Use all cream plus your starter.
- Use all half and half plus your starter.
- Use buttermilk and heavy cream instead and you will have “crème fraîche.”