Making butter the easy way

I was asked to do a post on making butter. It's not something that is generally part of my household tasks but I do make butter when I have spare cream or at this time of year. You get the best cream and milk in Spring. Making butter over Spring will give you the finest butter.

Like most other things in this simple life, the best ingredients will give you the best end result. I use cream from Jersey or Guernsey cows for my butter making. Usually it's 45 per cent butterfat - the higher the butter fat content the easier it is to make and the better the cream and butter will be. If you can't find Jersey or Guernsey cream, buy pure whipping cream or heavy cream. Check the label and make sure there are no "stabilisers or vegetable gums" in the cream. You want pure cream.

If you can find cream at a good price and you want to make butter, it's prudent to buy a large quantity because butter made well will store for a few months in the freezer. I live in dairy country with lots of rolling hills and brown and cream coloured cows dotted throughout. Unfortunately our cream never goes on special, if it did, I'd take advantage of that and make butter when the price was low, especially if I could get a lot of Spring cream.

In the old days, homemakers used to make butter with a butter churn or by shaking a jar full of cream. Nowadays we can use our electric appliances however, butter can be made by hand simply by shaking the cream in a jar.

Generally I buy local Maleny cream but this one was cheaper, and still local, so I bought Cooloola cream this time.

You can see here just how thick and luscious it is. This is not thickened cream, it's pure Jersey cream.

HOW TO MAKE BUTTER

Place the cream into your food processor, or into a bowl if you're using an electric beater. Start processing.

This is just 20 seconds after starting. See how it's moved from soft cream to a harder cream. The higher the fat content in the cream you're using, the faster the butter will form.

You will hear the processor change as the butter starts to form and it's harder for the blades to work. In the photo above you can see the butter milk has separated from the cream. This was about 45 seconds into the process. For this small amount of cream - I used about 300 mls or just over a cup full of cream, I got about 25 mls of buttermilk. If you want to add salt, add it at this stage, after you pour off the buttermilk, according to your taste, and whizz it up again to mix it in properly.

If I were making much more butter and had a few cups of buttermilk, I would have stored it in a clean glass jar in the fridge for cooking or drinking. Hanno loves real buttermilk. I won't save this tiny portion but will add it to the water run off from washing the butter. More on this below.

After pouring off the butter milk, get some ice cold water from the fridge and pour about half a cup into the butter and continue processing. This will wash the butter. It's important to wash it properly because if you leave buttermilk in butter, it will go mouldy fairly quickly.

Make sure the water you use is ice cold. Cold water won't mix in with the butter, it will simply wash through it and wash out again. Pour the milky water off into a container.

After you wash the butter remove it from the processor onto one of the clean cotton cloths you use for yoghurt making or ginger beer. Just like yoghurt making, hang the strainer over a big jug so it can drain.

It's a good idea to have a few of these cloths made for various uses around the kitchen. I'll do a post on them soon.

Get more ice cold water and wash over the butter again, making sure the run off now is clear and not milky. Squeeze the butter in the cloth to remove the remaining liquid.

And there you have your butter!

Scrape it off the cloth on onto a serving dish or storage container and keep it in the fridge.

I poured the small amount of buttermilk into the run off milky water and will use it to soak grains and old bread for the chickens. They will LOVE it. You could also use to it soak grains you will eat or for cooking cakes or scones.

While making butter isn't something we do everyday as part of our other kitchen tasks, it is worthwhile making one batch to teach yourself this skill. It's a wonderful treat to give your guests, especially when they visit for morning tea, because so few of us have experienced real home made butter. I guarantee it will be something they will tell other people they had because it's such a rare thing nowadays. We all have a place in our heart for good butter.

And speaking of hearts and butter, this is from Nourishing Traditions, page 84:
Myth: Saturated fat clogs arteries.
Truth: The fatty acids found in artery clogs are most unsaturated (74%) of which 41% are polyunsaturated. Sourced from The Lancet 1994 [The Lancet is the world's leading independent medical journal.]