Ohio fair butter sculpture features athletes, chocolate milk
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The Ohio State Fair is using color-tinted butter to make a larger than life bottle of chocolate milk in the 2017 Butter Cow display.
This year, the traditional butter cow and calf are joined by four high school athletes and the 6-foot bottle of chocolate milk.
The bottle of chocolate milk features the logo of the Ohio High School Athletics Association and is colored using cocoa powder mixed in with the butter.
“We wanted the sculpture to really look like a delicious bottle of chocolate milk, so we decided to test out a small batch of butter by adding a pinch of cocoa powder,” said one of the lead butter sculptors, Alex Balz. “It created this beautiful brown color that looked perfect when we applied it to the sculpture.”
It took sculptors a combined 500 hours to create the butter display, according to the American Dairy Association.
According to the American Dairy Association, sculptors begin by building wooden and steel frames to support the weight of the butter. From 55-pound blocks, the butter is sliced into loaves and layered on the frames. After hours of molding and smoothing the butter, each sculpture begins to take shape.
Fine details are added last.
Past butter cow themes have included the 2016 NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers, the 2015 College Football champion Ohio State Buckeyes, state symbols and the Columbus bicentennial.
The butter display is in the Dairy Products Building at the Ohio State Fair daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. The fair will begin Wednesday and continue through Aug. 6.