Little House in the Big Woods

In Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the process of making butter is described in detail in Chapter 10, titled "The Long Winter." In this chapter, the Ingalls family prepares for the long and harsh winter ahead, and one of the essential tasks is preserving food, including making butter. The family works together to churn cream into butter, highlighting the manual labor and traditional methods used by pioneers during that time.

Scope/ Overview of Class: Students will explore how butter was made historically by using a manual butter churn tool.

Sequence/ Method of Teaching/ Lessons:

• Read Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, with students

• Watch video on where heavy cream comes from

• Watch video portraying historical and modern butter production to understand the process

• Use a manual butter churn to process their own butter:

  • Pour heavy cream into the churn jar, fill it about ¼ to 1/3 of the way full

  • Churn until the butter separates from the buttermilk (about 10 minutes)

  • Remove the church and stir the butter around until it forms a ball

  • Drain the buttermilk off (save it to bake with. Pancakes… Yum!)

  • Rinse and drain the ball of butter under cold water so that you don’t melt it.

  • Take a clean bowl and squish the butter up against the sides of the bowl to make sure all the buttermilk and water is removed (the liquid will drip to the bottom of the bowl)

  • At this point you can rinse it again and repeat the process if you’d like.  

  • Optional: kneed in 1 tsp. salt per pound of butter

  • You can then form the butter into a shape or use a butter mold

  • Store the butter in a container in the fridge.

 Supplies needed: butter churn tool, butter mold, jars for storing butter, heavy cream, salt

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In Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Laura and Mary both have Prairie dolls. Prairie dolls are easy and fun to make with scraps of fabric and spare buttons. Follow this link for a great video tutorial!