Technologies K–10 · Years 1–2
From cream to butter: a dairy food made by shaking
Living World (NSW Science and Technology K–6, 2017, food and fibre); Design and Technologies: Knowledge and understanding, Technologies context: Food and fibre production (ACARA v9)
School laboratory, not for home
In a school laboratory, with a teacher supervising, under the school's risk assessment. Not for home.
The idea
Cream from cows' milk turns into butter when hard shaking makes its fat droplets join together and separate from the liquid buttermilk.
Safety card
Setting: In a school laboratory, with a teacher supervising, under the school's risk assessment. Not for home.
Hazards
- Milk allergy: contact with or tasting dairy can cause a severe allergic reaction
- Food spoils if left warm
- Slippery floor from spills
Controls
- Check allergy and anaphylaxis plans before the lesson; children with milk allergy do not handle or taste
- Hands washed; clean containers; butter kept cold and eaten the same day or discarded
- Plastic, not glass, containers; spills wiped at once
Note
No heat or laboratory chemicals. Follow the NSW Department of Education anaphylaxis procedures and food hygiene practice; record the activity on Primary School RiskAssess (riskassess.com.au).
What you need
- 150 g (about 150 mL) of double or rich cream per pair, straight from the fridge, with at least 48 g of fat per 100 g on the nutrition panel
- 1 clean screw-top plastic container of about 500 mL per pair
- 1 kitchen scale reading to 1 g, used by the teacher
- 1 sieve and 1 bowl
- Cold tap water for rinsing
- Clean spoons and plain crackers for tasting, after the allergy check
How to do it
- The teacher weighs the empty container, adds the cream, weighs again and writes the mass of the cream on the board.
- Screw the lid on tight and take turns shaking hard. Check every 2 minutes and draw what you see: runny cream, whipped cream, then yellow lumps in a thin liquid.
- When a lump forms, pour everything through the sieve into the bowl. The teacher weighs the buttermilk.
- Rinse the butter in cold water and press out the liquid with a spoon. The teacher weighs the butter.
- With the teacher, add the butter and buttermilk masses and compare the total with the mass of the cream.
What you should see
Shaking turns the runny cream into whipped cream and then into a yellow lump of butter in a thin white liquid, the buttermilk; the Royal Society of Chemistry's butter activity, which uses double cream, allows 10 to 15 minutes of shaking. That is why the fat content is specified: cream sold as thickened or pure cream holds less fat than double cream, so it has less fat to join together and may not form a lump inside the lesson. Butter and buttermilk together come back to the mass of the cream, less what stuck to the container and sieve, because shaking separates what was already in the cream and adds nothing new. The learner knows it worked when the container holds a yellow lump and a thin white liquid and the two masses together are close to the mass of the cream.
What changes
This activity lists no variables to change, measure and keep the same.
Common misconceptions
Each of these ideas is wrong, and the activity is a chance to test it.
- Butter comes from plants like margarine (it is made from the fat in cows' milk).
- Shaking adds something new to the cream (it separates what was already there, so the masses add back up).
- Buttermilk is waste (it is a food used in baking).
Curriculum references
The NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes this activity supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.
- Science and Technology K–6 Syllabus (2017), NESA. The syllabus taught in 2026; the 2024 syllabus replaces it from 2027. Code read from the official syllabus document (DOCX) on 2026-09-22.ST1-5LW-TST1-2DP-T
- Science and Technology K–6 Syllabus (2024), NESA. Implementation from 2027, so this code describes the future syllabus. Code read from the outcomes page on 2026-09-22.ST1-DDT-01
- Australian Curriculum v9AC9TDE2K03
Sources
The pages the author read to write this activity.