First we have to skim the cream from the milk. We have found it is best to let the milk sit, in the fridge, for 24 hours - that gives us the best cream.
Here's our evening cream...mmmm This will set out till morning becoming cultured or slightly soured. We purposely leave lids off because if you don't the "gases" can not escape and the bacteria from the air, which is needed to culture, can not get to the cream.
Using a modern woman's best friend to shake the cream....it takes about 45-60 minutes depending on the cream and if it's been cultured or not. Cold cream doesn't make good butter.
Butter in a pool of buttermilk...which is nasty by the way...although some claim it's really good! We personally think that someone in our house is just saying that it is good to be "different" - If you tasted it you would agree...yuk!
So here is the time-consuming part...butter washing! It's actually very relaxing and takes about 20-30 minutes. Washing the butter consists of of putting in cold water and "squishing", not smearing, the butter with a slotted spoon to the bottom of the bowl, then poor off that water and do it again and again and again and again until the water runs clear. Now you have to get as much water out as possible - I seem to always have a bit of water left. Now salt and put into mini containers to mold. Set the containers in the refrigerator overnight and then I usually take the butter out of the mold and freeze in freezer paper. The taste is far superior to anything you can purchase at the store. One draw back is that it doesn't seem to do well for frying There is a weird smell - so it fries fine but the smell is strong...but we just use bacon grease...and I wonder why my jeans don't fit!
I've used it in cookies and breads - anything calling for butter in baking and it works fine.
Thanks for stopping by - hope you enjoyed a bit of old fashioned culinary art...
