Whipped Cream

I love whipped cream.  On my pie, ice cream, hot chocolate, fresh fruit, and the list goes on.  When I'm making something creamy, I must admit I use cool whip, but there are some scary sounding ingredients in that stuff.  Reddi Whip from the can is so fun and easy to squirt straight to your mouth when you just NEED it.  Real whipped cream is super tasty, and you can control the sweetness.

Who will take the cake?  Muahaha - pun intended.

The store brands: Cool Whip (tub from the freezer section)
Reddi Wip (yep, from the can)

The recipe (from http://www.allrecipes.com/):
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Chill the bowl and beats in the freeze for at least 5 mins before starting.  Combine the cream, sugar, and vanilla and beat about 2-3 minutes until peaks form.  Don't beat too long or you will end up with butter (not such a bad thing)!

So cool whip always comes from the freezer section, which means it takes at least a little planning.  I've tried to make the creamy jello while it's still too frozen - don't do it.  Reddi Wip from the can tends to "melt" down really fast.  Homemade will fall as well, and you need to handle it fragilly so you don't let too much of the air out.

As far as taste goes, the Reddi Wip was out right away.  It's the lightest, but it has a chemically taste - it's just not right.  The Cool Whip was far sweeter than my whipped cream, but the homemade was just so much creamier.  If you want it sweeter, you can always just up the amount of confectionerary sugar.

Left is Reddi Wip, middle is Cool Whip, and right is homemade.

Well the cost works about about the same for cool whip and homemade.  Reddi Wip comes at a premium, but it is convenient to use it when you need it.  My mom always used to keep a can in the fridge.

	Amount	Cost	Cost/oz
Cool Whip	8 oz	$     1.65	$          0.21
Reddi Wip	6.5 oz	$     2.79	$          0.43
Homemade	8.5 oz	$     2.03	$          0.24

So Bake or Buy?  BAKE!

Cool Whip will do fine if you need to fold it into a recipe, but if you are topping off some fresh strawberries or a warm pie, buck up and make your own!

Butter

No, I'm not about to get out my butter churner. I've read you can make it by shaking, using an electric mixer, or even the food processor.

The store brand: Land O' Lakes Unsalted Butter

My Recipe (adapted from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/homemade-butter-recipe/index.html):

1 pint heavy cream, very cold

Pinch salt, optional

- Refrigerate the bowl/beaters/jar or whatever you are going to use ahead of time to get everything very cold.  The food network recipe says to shake the cream in a jar for 15 to 30 minutes, but I just put it in my food processor.



This whole process took about 8 minutes.



 - Pour into a strainer set over a bowl. The chunks in the strainer are butter, and the liquid in the bowl is buttermilk.

- Pour the buttermilk into a clean container, cover, refrigerate, and reserve for another use.

- Turn the butter into a clean bowl and cover with very cold water. Pour into a strainer, discarding the liquid. Continue rinsing the butter with very cold water until the water runs clear. (The cloudy water is buttermilk which will make the butter turn sour.)

- When the butter is clean, work with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to press out any remaining liquid. Discard this liquid. If desired, add salt to the butter. (Salted butter will keep longer.)

- Transfer the butter to a clean container for keeping and refrigerate until ready to use.

So that's it - you've got butter!  It tasted unremarkably like butter - for some reason I thought it would taste like magically delicious butter, but no, just butter.  It was a really neat thing to see though, I'd recommend everyone tries to make butter.



The cost?  You aren't going to save money making your own butter.  But I didn't account for the cup or so of buttermilk you will also get during the butter making process, so that's a bonus for your pancakes or bisquits or whatever.  That buttermilk is not the cultured kind you would get from the store, and I haven't used mine yet, so I'm not sure what I'll do with it. 

I usually just buy our store brand butter, which costs about a dollar less than Land O' Lakes, so store bought definitely wins the price category.

	Amount	Cost	Cost/pound
Land O' Lakes Unsalted Butter	1 lb	$     4.49	$          4.49
Homemade	3/4 lb	$     5.00	$          6.67

So overall, you get a butter that tastes a lot like the store bought version, that takes a little bit of work, but costs more...

Bake or Buy?  BUY!

Ice Cream

Yeah, yeah - most people don't think much about ice cream in the winter.  Well you should - ice cream is always delicious and if you've never made your own, it's incredibly easy.  For this post I was totally planning to do vanilla vs. vanilla - a serious showdown.  Well I still had some Oreos left from that post, and I couldn't help myself - COOKIES AND CREAM!  I already have the upper hand on Breyers.

The store brand: Breyers Vanilla

My Recipe:
Ingredients
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla (if making plain vanilla, use a vanilla bean for flavor)
8 oreo cookies

Directions

Coarsely chop the Oreos.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir it up.  I added my Oreos now also (I wanted them to get soft), but they ended up almost emulifying in the ice cream maker - you can add them once the ice cream just starts to get hard to get larger chunks.  It still tastes like cookies n' cream either way!

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker according to unit's instructions (mine is dump in, turn on and let it go for 30 mins). The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. Once it has reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer at least 1 hour before serving.

Okay, it looks like chocolate, but it tastes like cookies n' cream!  Promise.

Now scoop out all this leftover ice cream and eat the crap out of it:

Taste-wise this ice cream was fan-freaking-tastic.  Really great ice cream.  Breyers makes a decent ice cream as well, but mine was so creamy and flavorful, I couldn't get enough.  At this point it would probably come down to cost.

I was very surprised by the cost. You can actually save money making your own ice cream.  Even with my $1 worth of Oreos, it's less to make your own ice cream (if you own a maker)!  Honestly, I almost never buy ice cream if it's not at least buy one get one free, but hey, still less than full price.

	Size	Cost	Cost/oz
Breyers Ice Cream - All Natural Vanilla	48 oz	$ 6.99	$ 0.15
Homemade	32 oz	$ 3.94	$ 0.12

Bake or Buy?  BAKE!

I'd honestly have to say, I think it's worth while to invest in an ice cream maker.  And keep an eye out for some posts coming up on what to do with that leftover whipping cream!

Yogurt

OMGoodness!  I am so excited for this day!!  I am going to make my own yogurt.  I am very touch and go with yogurt.  The consistency grosses me out a little, but it's good for you.  There is a local restaurant that makes their own fresh yogurt and combines it with fresh fruit for a yogurt of the day.  It's the best yogurt I've ever had, so I'm going to attempt to do this for myself!

The store brand: Stoneyfield Farm Plain Yogurt

The recipe:
Half gallon of whole milk (8 cups) - do not use ultra pasteurized
1/2 cup store-bought natural yogurt - use this as a starter, then you will use your own yogurt next time
Fresh fruit and honey to make it delicious

(I chose the crockpot method, which takes a while, but is easy - there are other methods)
- Cover and cook entire half gallon of milk on low for 2 1/2 hours.
- Unplug your crockpot. Leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours.

Yeah, I know, that picture is uninteresting...

- After three hours, scoop out 2 cups of the warmish milk and put it in a bowl. Whisk in 1/2 cup of store-bought live/active culture yogurt. Then dump the bowl contents back into the crockpot. Stir to combine.
- Put the lid back on your crockpot. Keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation.
- Go to bed, or let it sit for 8 hours.
- In the morning, the yogurt will have thickened.
- Blend in batches with your favorite fruit - I like to add in a small dice of strawberries and bananas.
- Chill in a plastic container in the refrigerator. Your fresh yogurt will last 7-10 days. Save 1/2 cup as a starter to make a new batch.

So the recipe sounds all good and easy, but it wasn't.  When I woke up I ran to the kitchen like HEY I'M GOING TO EAT MY VERY OWN YOGURT!!!! (!!).  But it was really thin and runny, though it did taste like yogurt.  I turned the crockpot back to keep warm setting and let it sit for about 8 more hours.  It thickened slightly and I let it strain through a cheesecloth for a while (warning: don't squeeze the cheesecloth... all the yogurt will just go through it).

At this point I let the yogurt refrigerate, where it actually did thicken a little.  So my yogurt's on the left:

And then since plain yogurt is lame, I added honey and strawberries to both.

How about the cost?  Well, if you are comparing plain to plain yogurt, it is MUCH cheaper to make your own.  If you normally buy flavored yogurt and have to pay for the fresh fruit and honey for your homemade yogurt, there is still a cost advantage, and you get some fresh fruit (I accounted for 1/2 cup honey and 1 cup diced fresh fruit for the batch).

	Amount	Cost	Cost/Oz
Stonyfield Farm Organic Plain	32 oz	$      3.75	$            0.12
Homemade	8 cups	$      3.19	$            0.05
Homemade with Fruit/Honey	8 cups	$      5.19	$            0.08

So, it costs less, but took a really long time.  In the end, I did not really like the homemade yogurt - it was just too thin.  I ended up making frozen yogurt from it (PUMPKIN FROZEN YOGURT!), which was very delicious.  To be fair, my husband liked the homemade yogurt much more.  But if I had to choose, which this blog is my opinion...

Bake or Buy? BUY!