And Then There Was ----Butter!


Last week a friend send me a Facebook link about 50 things that a person can make instead of buying.  I have seen sites like this before and, upon reading, find that I do a lot of these things already.  However, this particular site listed something that I remember doing as a child but never thought of revisiting -- making butter.  I am sorry I didn't take photos so you will just have to use your imagination.

The site said to use a stand mixer, add a quart of heavy whipping cream and 3/4 teaspoon of salt.  They also gave directions for grating a carrot and straining the juice into milk to add for color but I omitted this step.  They also heartily advised covering the mixer with a towel to deal with the splashing and they weren't exaggerating. 

So, in went the cream and salt, mixer on high (although I don't think it needed to be quite so high) and off we went to make butter.  I can't tell you how long it actually took because I stopped the machine at the whipped cream stage to look at that beautiful whipped cream.  Then I continued on until I heard the bumping noise made by the clump of butter in the bottom of the bowl.

I then followed the instructions to put the lump of butter in a colander or a strainer over a bowl and pour off the buttermilk to save for baking in the next day or two.  I then pressed the butter under cold, running water to get rid of any remaining buttermilk and then placed it in a covered pyrex dish.

It was beautiful!  And, a quart of cream makes about a pound of butter.  I was thrilled.  I still am, actually.

The next morning I used the buttermilk to make biscuits with White Lily self rising flour.  They were so fluffy -- I couldn't believe the difference. 

So, now in addition to making our bread, I am now making our butter.  Will I do it again? Yes, probably so.  I looked at the various packages of butter in our refrigerator and while most of them said "cream and salt", all of them said "coloring".  They were specific about what that mean so I think that my home-grown butter is probably a better choice.

Next time I will take photos.