Milk & Milk Products
Buy, Store & Prepare
Milk
At the supermarket:
Always pick up your milk last (so it has less chance to warm up), and check the "best before" date on the package.
At home:
Refrigerate at 4°C as soon as possible after purchase.
- Store milk on refrigerator shelves rather than in your fridge doors – the doors are not usually cold enough.
- Whenever possible, leave milk in its original container to safeguard its flavour and food value.
- Avoid exposing milk to light – light destroys its riboflavin content and can cause "off" flavours.
- To avoid spoilage, do not return unused milk from a serving pitcher to the original container.
- Keep milk containers closed and stored away from strong-smelling foods; milk is sensitive to odours.
Cream
- Refrigerate cream as soon as possible after purchase.
- Open cartons of cream should be refrigerated immediately after use and used up within 1 week.
- Store cream on refrigerator shelves where it is cooler, rather than in the refrigerator doors.
- Use the freshest cream possible and always use by the “best before date”. Buy smaller amounts more often rather than storing open, larger containers in the refrigerator.
- Cream doesn’t freeze well. Upon thawing it can separate and lose its creamy texture. If freezing foods such as soups or stews, add the cream after you reheat the thawed food.
- When whipping a small amount of cream (1/2 cup/125 mL or less), use a small chilled bowl or liquid measuring cup and a whisk instead of an electric mixer – you’ll have much more control and will get velvety, fluffy whipped cream.
- Maximize the volume of whipped cream by adding sweeteners, such as sugar or maple syrup, or other flavourings or seasonings, such as lemon zest, herbs or spices, when it’s almost completely whipped rather than at the beginning when it’s still liquid.
- On hot days, set your bowl of whipping cream in a larger bowl of ice while whipping to get the most volume. Keep the bowl in the ice in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve it.
- For a little extra stabilizer to make sure whipped cream stays fluffy in the refrigerator or on a cake, for each cup (250 mL) Whipping cream sift 1tbsp (15 mL) skim milk powder and icing sugar, to taste, over the almost-whipped cream then beat it until stiff.
Butter
- Keep butter refrigerated in its original wrapper. The foil laminated paper helps prevent spoilage from exposure to light and air, and also protects butter from picking up the flavour of other foods.
- If you wrap it well, once opened, both salted and unsalted butter will keep in the fridge for three weeks. However, if you plan to keep it longer than a few weeks, butter will keep its fresh taste better if you wrap it again in extra foil or plastic.
- Butter freezes well, but should be further protected in additional foil or plastic. Properly wrapped, salted butter will keep in the freezer for up to one year. After this, it may begin to lose flavour or pick up freezer odours. The salty taste of salted butter may intensify with freezing. Unsalted butter will keep in the freezer for three months.
- To have a handy supply of easy-to-spread butter, remove a small amount from the fridge and leave it on the counter in a covered container. For this, salted butter is best because the salt acts as a preservative.
Find out more about Ontario milk and milk products:
Visit: www.dairygoodness.ca
