Saturday, August 7, 2010

Making Butter from Scratch

I had some heavy cream left over from another cooking project and wasn't sure what to do with it. Then I decided that I should make butter! Homemade butter is so much more awesome than the butter in stores and it isn't that fake yellow color. I decided to use my handy food processor for this because I did not want to try doing this by hand. Really this can't get much easier. Start by throwing your cream into the food processor and Whoosh! away it goes. It doesn't take long for a nice foam to start. I did throw in a dash of salt just 'cuz. The first thing you get is whipped cream. It would be yummy except the added salt and lack of sugar. The first time I made whipped cream after moving out on my own I didn't know you where supposed to add sugar, I quickly learned. After some more time you the cream starts to separate from the liquid. I drained the liquid off and processed a bit longer to make sure it was all out. Next I added a half cup of ice cold water at a time to 'wash' the butter. This is to make sure all the butter milk is gone. Just keep adding and draining the water until it is clear. You don't have to do this step if you are going to be using your butter quickly but if you want to be able to store it then this will help it last longer. When you are done you will have beautiful creamy butter that is different than anything you've had from a store. This is a wonderful time to add other flavorings or seasonings like garlic or herbs.

2 comments:

  1. I have made butter before (on my blog actually) using the baby jar method and shaking....but I had no idea you can "rinse" the butter milk out! Does this make it less "solid" and more spreadable? Once mine went into the fridge - it was solid as a rock! -kg

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  2. It is supposed to make it last longer. I don't refrigerate my butter normally unless the temp. is just too high I like to leave it covered on the counter. I don't think this would probably help with the stiffness at all unfortunately.

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