Making my own butter! (merged)

astep70uk · 29 December 2005 at 9:48PM

I've only just found this board as I am a regular on Grabbit, but thought I'd post this.

For christmas I got the new River Cottage book, and it's fab!!
One of the projects is making your own butter. Now I absolutely love butter, so thought I'd give it a go.
The results are fantastic! Forget Lurpak, I'll be making my own from now on.

All you need is double cream at room temperature, and a screw top jar.
Fill it one third full of cream, and shake, and shake, and shake, and shake!
You will go through the whipped cream stage, and it'll feel like it isn't moving, but keep going.
You will eventually hear the sound change, and will make a lardy mass seperated from some milky liquid.
The liquid is buttermilk, and the mass is your butter.
Remove the butter from the container, and run under cold water until no more milk comes out.
Then press it on a chopping board until no more liquid comes out.
This is your butter!! Store in greaseproof paper in the fridge!

On my third attempt I added a little salt as I like my butter salty, and it's delicious!!

sarahlouise210 · 29 December 2005 at 9:57PM

we did this as children and thought it was great fun (but hard work!) our reward was to eat it on hot toast cooked on a stick in the open fire ...ahhh they were the days!

skintchick · 30 December 2005 at 4:20PM

Surely more expensive than buying butter?

jobbingmusician · 30 December 2005 at 4:40PM

Depends how much you pay for your cream - can be loads reduced to clear, this time of year :rudolf:

RachelD · 30 December 2005 at 6:31PM

As a child I used to help my mother make butter. This was on our farm where the milk came fresh from the cow to a hand turned wooden churn. We eventually got an electric churn that looked like a very large glass sweetie jar. I think the aim of the rest of my life has been to find butter tasting the same as that home made stuff. You'd need unpasteurised milk or cream to come close - that's probably not an option nowadays with alll the regulations over unpasteurised products!

However don't throw away the buttermilk - it makes the best lightest scones ever.

Ticklemouse · 30 December 2005 at 6:41PM

Can you freeze buttermilk? I have 2 cartons of double cream in the fridge (reduced to 19p each) and was debating earlier whether to make butter (I haven't really any need for that much cream) However, whilst I know buttermilk makes fabbo scones, I have so much stuff to eat in the way of cakes etc, I don't want to make scones just yet. I'm assuming you could just treat it like ordinary milk, which I freeze all the time?

foreverskint · 30 December 2005 at 6:43PM

I can get unpatstuerised cream from my local farmers market, but so remember you can't eat this if you're pregnant or old or ill or a small child lol. That rules lots of people out :snow_laug .

It is lovely, and tastes like cream used to taste.

jobbingmusician · 30 December 2005 at 6:55PM

Ticklemouse wrote:

I have 2 cartons of double cream in the fridge (reduced to 19p each) and was debating earlier whether to make butter (I haven't really any need for that much cream)

Can you make butter from cream that's been frozen? I would have thought that freezing it might alter the solid/liquid chemistry so that you couldn't?

I'd be VERY careful re-freezing buttermilk that's been made from previously frozen cream - sounds like it might be a recipe for Listeria. Sorry for the bad news or if I'm being alarmist! :rolleyes:

thriftlady_2 · 30 December 2005 at 7:25PM

you can also use buttermilk as the liquid in breadmaking.

RachelD · 30 December 2005 at 7:47PM

You could make the scones and freeze those.

Rachel

Ticklemouse · 30 December 2005 at 7:51PM

No - the cream isn't frozen. I just wondered about freezing the buttermilk after making the butter.

I would rather freeze buttermilk than scones as scones are one of those things best made and eaten the same day. Mind you, I've never frozen scones, so can't comment on how it may or may not change them.

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Making my own butter! (merged)

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