How Cream Turns to Butter
[caption id="attachment_3195" align="alignright" width="440"] Old-Fashioned Butter Churn[/caption] You've seen it as a youngster. A demonstration in which cream is turned into butter by whipping, perhaps by an electric mixer, perhaps using a hand mixer. How is it possible? Cream is a suspension of fat globules spread throughout a water-based or aqueous solution—a solution that contains water-soluble substances. Preventing the tiny fat globules from joining together—coalescing—is a kind of membrane surrounding each one, called a milk fat globule membrane (MFGM). Butter? MFGM Composition and Structure This membrane is composed of proteins, enzymes, and lipids.¹ Actually, there are two layers that develop around each fat core—a phospholipid layer (developed at the time of formation) encased within a plasma membrane layer (formed at the time of secretion).² The combination is often referred to…