Gigglesnort

[mamadeb]

I just made butter. There was this article in the New York Time Magazine about churning one's own butter, and a couple of other foodblogs, all referenced by Michael Ruhlman's blog today.

Those of us who grew up reading books like Little House in the Big Wood learned that churning butter is hard work. Those of us who learned to make our own whipped cream know that it really, really isn't - I know I'm not the only one who, in a moment of inattention, created sweet, vanillay butter. You just need a much smaller amount of cream and an electric device - food processor, stand mixer, hand mixer, or even a rotary eggbeater or a whisk if you want those arm muscles.

I have a dairy hand mixer. It's old, and I haven't actually used it this decade, but it was right to hand. So, I bought heavy cream. The NYT Magazine suggested organic cream, but when I looked at it, it had the same carrageenan as the standard heavy cream and cost more. So. I bought a 1/2 pint of heavy cream. And I let it sit out to get to about 60F (It's purely a guess - my instant read thermometer is fleishig.) And, well, I let it rip. And in about five minutes, it thickened, got to be whipped, made soft peaks, got grainy and broke. In other words, butter. I poured off the buttermilk (delicious) and worked the butter, squeezing out the rest of the butter milk. Now, they said five minutes, but they also used more cream. I squoze until there was no more. It's now sitting in my fridge firming up. No, I did not add salt.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with it - I'm having *chicken* for dinner tonight.

ETA: since I'm NOT fasting today, and dinner isn't even cooking yet, I spread some of *MY* butter on some rye bread. It's sweeter and creamier, but not immensely different than storebought. Next time, I do the culturing thing.

Comments

[cara-chapel.livejournal.com]

My grandma used to hand-churn large amounts of butter, and believe me-- it IS hard work in quantity.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Let's see. One cup of cream using an electric mixer vs. 16 times that volume (if not more) by hand?

Your grandmother wins. Big time. Also, I did it for a lark. I can't imagine she did.

[boroparkpyro.livejournal.com]

that is SO COOL. yishar koahh!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[reginagiraffe]

Did you color it with a grated carrot a'la Ma Ingalls? *g*

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Of course not. It's summer, so the butter is naturally a lovely pale yellow

Also, that would take it from fun to work.

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- will try it when I'm home recovering from my surgery.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Get the best cream you can first. Make it worth the (minor) effort.

When is your surgery?

[zsero.livejournal.com]

We used to do it in the blender. We tried it by hand once - put the cream in a jar and shake it; that took forever, and was a major pain even taking turns. But this was with cream taken off the top of the milk, not with store-bought heavy cream - if we had that, we'd have had store-bought butter too!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Yes, but finding non-homogenized milk is not an easy task. I used to see it in the D'agostino's on 7th Ave in the Slope, but that's closed. Since I just wanted to play with my food, store-bought cream was just fine.

Next time, I'll put in some yogurt and let it sit for a day. It should have more flavor.

[wynnsfolly.livejournal.com]

growing up in the rural Ozarks, when my parents retired to our farm, my mother got a Jersey cow as a pet, resulting in rich milk in our fridge.
We had one nice butter churn, handed down from a grandmother, but too much cream to deal with it at one time. Toni, the Jersey produced milk that would consist of at least a third cream, the remainder still being richer than grocerystore milk.
We would simply put the cream in a gallon jar, about half filled. As we sat around watching TV, everyone had a gallon jug in their lap, just rocking it back and forth. Usually took about an hour or so, to produce butter.
It was often flavored with whatever Toni had eaten(including the patch of wild onion that she loved, and we didn't care for in the milk) but made a light garlic butter.
the butter pats were frozen, and after Toni died in an accident, we still had homemade butter for something like three years before it ran out.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

What a great story! Thank you. And that garlic butter - *g*.

Not something that would happen to a city girl.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

I saw a person on tv showing how easy "homemade" was, he made butter with cream in a mason jar just shaking it vigorously for a few minutes.

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

Didn't you ever do it as a little kid at school? I remember doing it in kindergarten - of course, I also remember being grossed out because I was used to margarine at my house - and my son did it in Children's House (preschool.) It really is fun, though we usually get our butter from the store because we're lucky enough to live within the distribution areas of a couple of good dairies.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

No, I'm old so my science classes were almost entirely lectures.

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

We did it as little little kids, before we really had "classes". This would've been *thinks* 1975? 75 or 76, I don't remember which.

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

Ahem. I graduated high school in 1971. I did say old, right?

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

mm, butter. I didn't know you hung out at Ruhlman's blog!

Also, I owe you a thanks. Because of your glasses post the other day, I knew to look for glasses with magnetic sunglasses when I went to get my new ones today. The Transitions lenses were driving me *crazy*.