Butter

I am feeling like a bit of a lunatic as I type this one up.... We are getting ready to move to a new place in a few weeks, so in a kitchen filled with boxes, I took a notion tonight to make my own butter. I would gladly show you a picture of the finished product, but somewhere in this mess of an apartment, hides my camera.

Not that it matters, that since I went to put the dish that held my beautiful new ball of butter into the fridge, I dropped it and the dish smashed... all I could do is laugh my fool head off. Hence my current feelings of lunacy.

Now, I have to say that the butter was an AMAZING success. I had never even thought of making butter at home until one of my dear friends told me that she was having a great time making her own butter with her kids. I was amazed...I had it in my head it was an ancient churning process or something that required fresh from-the-farm milk/cream.

She enlightened me that it is actually quite easy. So - here is how it works.

In your stand mixer put 2 cups of heavy cream into the bowl (I used whipping cream). Room temperature is best. You can do it with cold cream but it takes a lot longer. Use the whisk attachment and make sure you use your splash guard!!  Add 1/2 tsp of salt.

On your highest speed, whip the cream until it "cracks".  By "crack" I don't mean an audible sound, I mean a separation that occurs where you see chunks of butter and liquid.  This will take about 3-4 minutes if the cream is room temperature, or about closer to 10 minutes if it's cold.

When this happens, stop the mixer and using a rubber spatula push all of the chunks of butter together to one side, separating it from the liquid (which is buttermilk - you can pour this off into a container and use it for baking later!).  Remove the liquid and keep the butter in the bowl.   I actually "strained" the butter out of the buttermilk using a wire strainer and a clean bowl and pressed the butter to try and remove as much of the buttermilk as I could.

Change your whisk out for your K paddle and add about 1 cup of ice cold water to the bowl with the butter.  Mix.  Again, using your spatula push the butter off to one side, drain off the liquid (this time, discard the liquid).  Repeat this process until the water comes off clear.  This is important to the process because you need to remove all of the buttermilk from the butter so that it will stay - it goes rancid pretty quick if you don't get it out.

Once you have drained off the last of the water, form the butter into a ball - and ENJOY!!! 

Before I broke my dish full of butter, I managed to make some popcorn on the stove top and cover it with freshly made butter!  It was delicious!!