Homemade butter
My maker pal Jon Sarriugarte and his daughter Zolie made homemade butter. Jon's short post and photos are inspiring! From Jon's Fire And Art blog:
My local homeless friend Hank found this great Daisy Churn #4 for me a few weeks back. With the leftover cream from the birthday pies we made last week and a copy of Joy of Cooking from 1964 we got to work. Right away we new we were in for the long haul when we read “how much slower the process was in threatening or stormy weather”. We looked outside and saw it was still raining.Homemade butter (Thanks, Shawn Connally!)
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Our kids learned how to make butter at a demonstration at the Saskatchewan Western Development Museum a few years ago. Don't need a churn to make a small batch, just put the ingredients (sorry, don't know them off the top of my head, have to ask my wife) into a small jar, then agitate (shake, roll it around on the floor while watching a movie, etc.) until it's ready - rinse and add salt, then break out an appropriate butter delivery vehicle (bread, crackers, etc.) and dig in. Very tasty stuff, and they love making it almost as much as they love eating it.
Zolie is a cutie!!!!!
My husband told me about making butter in his kindegarten class - one of the teachers made home made bread, and the kids all took turns 'agitating' the butter until it was ready. I wish my school had done the same - what a cool activity to share with your kids!
Plus, I bet it tastes FREAKING AWESOME.
...Man, the Amish are going to sue you for horning in on their business!
Thanks, COWBOY_K @1! I may try that with my family!
I did that once simply by getting one of those small cartons of whole cream and shaking the heck out of it for a really long time ... no additional equipment necessary and like other folks have said, it is crazy-tasty!
You can also just use a stand mixer: beat until the cream reaches the "golden pebbles" stage, then use a cheesecloth to squeeze the remaining whey out. Easy to do, and tastes great on fresh bread.
You city folk sure entertain easy.
we used to make butter in kindergarten in old glass peanut butter jars, and we'd pass them around while chanting "shake, shake, shake, butter we will make."
If you have a stand mixer (kitchenaid or the like), it's really easy to make your own butter - just whip cream with the paddle attachment until it solidifies, pour off the buttermilk (save for pancakes or biscuits), and wash what's left. Yes, it does taste better.
That's a nice activity to do with your children, but I would be wary of that churner. It looks to might like it might have kitchen metal, which contains lead. Not a good thing to be exposing either children or food to.
wow this thread just made the memories of making butter in kindergarten class come flooding back. I remember it being extremely tasty and fun to do (we used babyfood jars). I definitely need to do this with my son.
My mother made butter more than once -- it's what happens if you don't stop mixing whipped cream soon enough.
Let's hear it for polymerized fats...
I have enjoyed making butter at my friend's smallholding farm with the cream skimmed from the raw milk of their cows. We just did it with a standard whisk, like we were making whipped cream, but kept going til it broke apart, then washed it and shaped it.
What I really love about it is how quickly and emphatically the cream suddenly separates into it's component parts. Made me think about what milk and cream actually are more than I ever have before. Making cheese was a similar experience. Working with dairy is actually quite a cool food-chemistry experience: what happens when you apply force? What happens when you apply an acid? What happens when you add a particular type of bacteria?
AWESOME and informative butter making video from Robert Krampf http://krampf.com/members/experiment-videos/making-butter
cowboy_k @1 Don't need a churn to make a small batch, just put the ingredients (sorry, don't know them off the top of my head, have to ask my wife) into a small jar, then agitate
The ingredients are: heavy cream. Salt is optional. I remember making butter this way when I was in preschool. We left the salt out and spread it on crackers. I thought it was the most delicious thing I ever tasted.
I haven't made butter with my daughter yet, but it's on my to-do list. The grocery stores here often mark products that are approaching their best-before dates 50% off, so next time I see heavy cream at half price, we'll be shaking up some butter.
When my son was little, we used to make butter in a ziplock bag all the time. I'd just take heavy cream and let it sit out overnight (soured cream made better tasting butter I thought), pour it into the bag and slosh it around while watching TV. Pretty soon there'd be butter, and after a quick rinse in cold water it was ready to eat.
Man, I'd never want to do this with a churn. I did it with a hand mixer once and it seemed to take forever. But it was worth the time. Maybe I'll make some bread and butter this weekend.
My grandmother still to this day makes homemade butter. I remember helping her make it when I was a kid, and it seemed like it took forever to make. So good though.
I remember making butter when I was about 10, just using the cream skimmed off the top of whole fat milk. Put it in a milk bottle wrapped in a teatowel and shook it like hell. Took hours and my mum was convinced it wouldn't work, but I was a persistent kid and she was most happy to eat her words in the form of buttery goodness at dinner that evening.
jackie31337 @17 The ingredients are: heavy cream. Salt is optional.
Thanks for the information. As soon as my wife saw my post she laughed and said "It's just cream." Now having displayed my utter ignorance to the world and to my beloved, I shall retire from this conversation.
I've never made butter, but we made ice cream in my HS chemistry class by putting the ingredients in plastic bags & shaking them.
We did this in grade school. All you have to do is put the cream in a jar and shake it for a long time; we took turns at the churns. :)
But it was nothing new to most of us, as I grew up in a small farming community in Iowa and at least 2/3 of the kids lived on farms, and many made their own butter, anyway.
Instructions from Wynonie Harris:
"Keep on churning til the butter comes
Keep on pumping, let the butter flow
Wipe off the paddle and churn some more"
Grandmapucker @10
My wife used to do this with her kindergarteners every year. She also had them make ice cream in Ziplock bags. (Little kids are so easily impressed.)
Zolie Mae!!
@ Tom Fury: re: soured cream: Does this mean I can make butter out of a packet of unopened cream I forgot was still in my fridge, and which must have gone sour by now? Or is that a different souring process to letting it go sour overnight in a warm environment?
I wonder if you could use an electric ice cream maker?
Maybe put the freezable bucket in the fridge instead of the freezer?
@ Tom Fury: re: soured cream: Does this mean I can make butter out of a packet of unopened cream I forgot was still in my fridge, and which must have gone sour by now? Or is that a different souring process to letting it go sour overnight in a warm environment?
Our Thanksgiving tradition has included making butter for the cornbread every year since my daughter learned in pre-school that Pilgrims made butter.
We place cold heavy cream into a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. We add a little salt, to taste. The jar then makes the rounds of everyone, guests included, as they watch the parade or football on t.v., or chat. In very little time, the cream thunks into butter. I put it into a mold, refrigerate it, and by dinner it is set to go.