A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

fuddle

I have read before GQ that you can shake cream to make butter but haven't tried this method myself. http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-butter-2.htm HTH

Kleopatra

GreyQueen wrote: »

Quick question; I've been following this double-cream-into-butter stuff avidly and keeping my eyes peeled for cream reduced to silly prices and I'll get some eventually. What I want to know is, can you shake cream into butter manually as I don't have a food mixer only a stick blender? I really fancy having a go at this and it would be so cool to be able to get one over on the supermarkets..........;)

I tried it for the first time yesterday with slightly out of date double cream left over from Christmas. I was pleased with my butter.

I used the manual method by shaking it it a glass jar. The instructions given said it would take about 10 minutes but it took much longer about 40 mins and gave my muscles a good work out.

However, in Shirley Goode's book she makes butter from cream from top of the milk by putting it in a liquidizer and blends on medium for i min when it starts to separate, Add 2 Tbs of water and continue blending. Drain off buttermilk and add half a cup of cold water and liquidize until butter is in large lumps. Drain and work it by hand to remove excess water.

This would suggest that a stick blender could work just as well. I don't have stick blender but will try the liquidizer method next time.

Let us know how you get on.

Kleopatra

I got instructions for shaking a jar from here in the making butter thread.

Rowan9

mardatha wrote: »

Redlady come out and play. I desperately need cheering up after a week of bad ME and a very very RV. Might change his name to the MCGRV.
Put your guesses to that on the back of a £50 and send them to me. The winner gets to keep him.

Am going to cheat and put my answers here - yes, cheating twice as having 2 shots at this as well as no £50 note

1. michty crabby RV

2.michty crabbit RV


Hope you have the sun Mardatha. We have it, I've been out in it and I'm going out again later just to get it into my heid :cool:. It's a good way of bringing some cheer to self even if you don't feel it at the time.

GreyQ hope you have a productive day on the lottie.

I've had wrinkled apple chopped and micro'd then added muesli and milk and micro'd again. really lovely brekkie. have only one wrinkly apple to go. Determined not to waste anything. have been reading the don't waste food thread as well. Don't usually waste stuff but it gives you ideas.

W

Byatt

Well there's definitely *something* in my loft...the rustling started again, well, I've put bubble wrap around the loft opening to reduce the draft, so it sounded like someone popping the bubble wrap. Stopped as soon as I put the light on! :eek::eek:

Not sure I want to put my head up there! No other sounds and nothing pre bubble wrap.

I have this vision of the bubble wrap steadily being pulled in...:eek:

Other than that I'm fine. :rotfl:Trying to motivate myself to tidy/declutter.

Need to put my SAD lamp on to give me a boost.

Mardatha, sorry about your ME; it's so frustating...anyhoo what's an RV?

GQ another one looking for reduced cream. BTW thanks for the tip about the baskets in the freezer; I actually have some and was wondering what to do with them!

bupster

Moment of MASSIVE panic as I checked my cc statement and instead of my happy 0% introductory Christmas interest they'd charged me the full whack. I rang them up and I think they're refunding me the lot but don't trust the !!!!!!s, will have to check daily. Hoping it's okay, though, they seemed to be admitting it was their mistake (though technically it was mine by not double checking my original direct debit was going through for the first month).

Another reason to get this blo*dy debt down, though. If I hadn't been checking carefully I'd have missed that and would be paying a hayuge amount of interest :eek:. I bet that's how they make their money, people just not noticing what they're being charged.

Anyway. Calm now (wrote that as clam at first. Zen and the art of seafood). Will keep checking daily and pestering them if necessary. But in the meantime, I've done all my outside chores for the day and am going to settle down to a slow day cooking and prepping for a lunch I'm doing for 15-20 tomorrow, and batch cooking for the week. Only had four hours' sleep, though, so may fall asleep with my face in the slow cooker. :rotfl:

3v3

GreyQueen wrote: »

...Quick question; I've been following this double-cream-into-butter stuff avidly and keeping my eyes peeled for cream reduced to silly prices and I'll get some eventually. What I want to know is, can you shake cream into butter manually as I don't have a food mixer only a stick blender? I really fancy having a go at this and it would be so cool to be able to get one over on the supermarkets..........;)

This takes me back to my Junior school days. As a project we would "donate" some of the top of the milk (remember those days of mini bottles of milk at school? Always warm) into jam jars and then we would all pass them around the table and from table to table giving 10 shakes each :rotfl: I was priviledged to be chose to walk to the shop to buy the bread so we could have bread with our homemade butter.

Some thoughts:
a) you will build up your biceps
b) you can roll the jar under your feet like a foot massager when your arms get tired; great for your calf muscles.
c) you can roll the jar along your thighs as a cellulite reducer for when your arms and feet get tired.
d) if you have children (and I don't believe you do, GQ, but others might) sit one child each end of the room and let them play rolling the jar to each other.
e) butter wasn't particularly successful when I tried a stick blender method

HTH

Tomorrow I get some new chickens :j four bantams that someone else can no longer keep because they are moving. I've got a good few miles to travel to get them, but I don't mind that at all.

Today I noticed a pair of bluetits eyeing up the bird house I have on my plum tree. Realising that the bird house on the apple tree went unused, I relocated it to another plum tree at the opposite side of the garden. Lo and behold, within 20 minutes this too was being checked out by another pair of bluetits Gotta love nature

fuddle - I have a tiered steamer which goes on my gas hob when I cook Sunday lunch. I use the bottom first to par boil my potatoes before transferring them to the roasting dish. The water used for the potatoes stays in the bottom pan. In the next tier I will put say sprouts in one half and broccoli in the other half. In the top tier I put carrots. One of my family will only eat tinned veg. I take the lids of those and sit those in the bottom of my oven and they warm through nicely. This way I only use one hob. When it's time to make the gravy, the tiered steamer is moved sideways (the steam keeps the veg hot) and I use that hob/ring for making gravy. Now, when you work out your costings for your electric steamer, you need to also work out how much it costs you to use one hob in the manner I do (I gather it's electric too?). Also weigh up the space it takes up on your counter top, ease of cleaning vs a tiered steamer pan etc. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of numerous electrical appliances with limited functions and I tend to try and keep the numbers down where possible, but, obviously that is just my personal preference

bupster

Fuddle, re steamer, I have a wicker-type thingy I picked up at the Chinese supermarket for pennies about ten years ago - it's lasted fine even after I accidentally set fire to it. The electric ones always seem to be a waste of money to me, as the wicker ones just sit on top of the saucepan where I'm doing my rice or spuds (or even pasta) and don't use up anything extra at all. But I could be wrong as I've never tried them.

kidcat

Fuddle - I use my electric steamer alot, especially to make rice as I kill rice any other way!! If we are having a party and cooking alot of rice I will use it three four times overall to get enough rice and I cant say it uses huge amounts of extra electricity.
If I am just cooking one item then I will use the microwave steamer I bought or a pan insert if I have a pan cooking anyway, but for cooking several items the electric steamer is great - unlike a pan I dont need to worry about it boiling dry, I just set the timer an leave it to do its thing.

lilac_lady

I remember collecting the foil tops from milk bottles at school when I was a child but can't remember why.

In the winter the milk was put on top of the classroom radiators to defreeze and we were given half warm, half frozen bottles of milk to drink under pain of punishment if we didn't finish it.

Ahhh, the good old days! (not).