Hi guys. It’s been a long while since I’ve been on the forums, how’s everybody doing? I was watching something about Russia the other day, a girl talking about syrniki (tvorog cheese pancake) and I wanted to try it. While looking for recipes, I discovered smetana (Russian sour cream), which supposedly is usually a lot higher fat than the American sour cream with which most of you are familiar. So obviously I had to try making it, and share the results with some fellow fat loving fanatics!
Now the easiest way to make real sour cream is to let raw milk sour, then scoop the thickened cream off the top. But selling raw milk is illegal in my country, and I don’t have direct farm access now, so here is how I did it with pasteurized cream.
I took just under 500ml (2 cups) of 35% MF cream, heated it up until it was quite warm but not hot. In a smaller bowl, I put a bit (a couple tablespoons) of store bought sour cream (18% MF) with bacterial cultures, to use as my starter (natural yogurt supposedly works really well, too!), and mixed in some of the cream to thin it out so it would disperse evenly. Then I mixed both creams together, and put it in a container at warm room temperature for about 16 hours, until it thickened. After it was thickened (don’t expect it to be super thick yet) and smelled pleasantly sour, I put it in the fridge over night, and in the morning it was thick enough to hold a spoon up!
If you want it to be even thicker and higher in fat, you can even mix in some melted butter with the heavy cream before you ferment it. Just make sure everything is warm, so the butter mixes in properly and doesn’t form clumps.
Enjoy! Be it on your food, or with a spoon directly 
May God bless and make shine His face upon you all.
