Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Why does cream turn yellow as it is turned into butter?

Cream is the fat of milk and it is white. Even if no additives are added during churning, the cream turns yellow. How is this possible?Why does cream turn yellow as it is turned into butter?
All animal fat is a yellow shade of some sort no matter where it comes from even milk. Cream that is skimmed off the top of fresh, unpasteurized, unhomoginized milk is white because of the color of the milk the cream separates because fat and oils float on most water based liquids like milk. The butter turns a very light yellow because all of the fat is separated from the remaining milk parts. The fat is yellow before made into butter, you just can't see it with the naked eye because the fat cells and particles are so small.Why does cream turn yellow as it is turned into butter?
I believe the fat in the cream is so dispursed that you don't see the yellow in it until you churn it and the clumps come together that you actually notice the yellow.





Did you know that the original margarine was the color of vegetable shortening? They added a packet of yellow in the box to make it the yellow color. The customers had to mix it themselves to make it yellow. Today the companies just mix the yellow color into the margarine instead of making the customer do it.





I do know that if you take cream and put it in a jar, put the lid on it and shake it like mad, you can make butter with it. The fat particles will all come together . After all the fats are brought together, you rinse off the fat to get rid of the milk residue so it won't go bad.
I have read that some butter manufacturers use annatto (a yellow dye extracted from seeds of the annatto plant) to enrich the colour of the butter they make. A book I have (The Encyclopedia of Herbs, Spices and Flavourings) states that butter produced in winter, when the cows are fed on grain rather than grass, is sometimes less yellow than the butter made in spring and summer. For this reason, annatto may be added in minute quantities to enhance the colour, if necessary.

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