Sunday, August 07, 2011

Dairy Adventure: Butter

This summer I added to my list of goals that I wanted to try making my butter. I'm not sure exactly why...I'd read a few blog posts about people making their own and to be honest, I was intrigued. I've made yogurt a few times now and it is so easy and much more delicious than anything you can buy in a store. I hoped butter would be equally as wonderful!

I checked out Home Dairy with Ashley English from our local library. It is an amazing resource and a book I definitely have on my list to add to my personal collection. In this book, Ashley carefully walks you through each step of the butter making process with careful notes and very helpful pictures.

Butter is made from heavy cream. Basically, you whip it at a very high speed for about 9 minutes and all of a sudden you have butter! My Kitchen Aid mixer did all the work! One tip I read online was to drape a kitchen towel around your mixer as you whip the cream, otherwise you have quite a mess. After a few minutes, the cream separates and you have butter and buttermilk. I poured my buttermilk into a Mason jar and will use it to make pancakes. All you do next is rinse your butter, mix it with a bit of salt and store it.

The taste is unrivaled. We did a taste comparison with the butter we had in our fridge and the fresh butter I made - Cliff was shocked at how he could really tell the difference. I hope to never buy butter again!


 Stay tuned...I'll share about my mozzarella adventures soon!

2 comments:

Stacy said...

Well done! It is the best! Wait until you slather it on your homegrown radishes! Ashley is the best! I love her and her books! :)

Nate said...

I love how you two are continually growing and challenging yourself in new ways, I love reading about the garden and chickens and now this! fantastic!