Making Butter

Ever since finishing the afghan, I've not had much interest in yarn work.  I suppose I've just been fixing dinner and the like these days.  I'm not a Martha Stewart hostess-entertainer type; in fact I wouldn't even call myself a "cook."  But I do like preparing food, especially in ways homely, simple ways.

My first grade class, years ago, made butter for our Thanksgiving feast.  Heavy whipping cream + Mason jar + marble + shakeyshakey = homemade butter.  So simple.  I loved it.  I would do it for fun in high school and college, and I even regularly made butter with kids for one of my summer jobs.  There was a butter song we taught them to chant while churning:

Come, butter, come.
Come, butter, come.
Johnny's standing at the gate
Waiting for a butter cake.
Come, butter, come.

So when I found leftover cream in the fridge, I decide to make butter again!  I started off by simply pinching the carton closed and shaking.  I find it helps to have some air space in the container, so you might want to pour a full carton into any jar with a tight lid.  The liquid cream first becomes fluffy and thick.  It's straight whipped cream, and already a treat at this point.  Good for strawberries!  Here's the cream in the whipped state:



I've made butter without the marble "dasher" before, but this time the cream wasn't moving on its own, and it needed a little more agitation to become butter.  I slipped a marble inside, but it just got stuck in the cream.  A smooth stone with a little more weight did the trick.  As I shook the carton, the stone dashed the whipped cream until until the fat (butter) separated out and clung  together.  It looks a little lumpy at first, like cottage chese, and is surrounded by the white buttermilk.  I poured the buttermilk off and drank it.  I hear commercial buttermilk is nothing like this.



You can actually use the butter at this point, but it will keep longer if you work the little pockets of buttermilk out of the butter.  Rinse under cold water while patting and squeezing the butter with a wooden spoon (or your hands, but they will melt the butter a little).  The water will turn whitish and cloudy as it takes on the remaining buttermilk.  Discard this water, and keep rinsing and patting until your rinse water is clear.  At this stage you may add salt, herbs or spices, garlic, honey, etc.  I like it straight.  Then form into a patty, or press into a mold, or put it in a pretty bowl.  Whatever makes you happy!

Ta da!  Bake up some hearty bread, maybe even throw in some honey, and pretend you're a not-too-oppressed peasant in some fantasy novel.  Actually, try not to think about oppression just yet.  Be happy you have unlocked one of the mysteries of food production.  Very DIY.  Keep it up!