Homemade Butter
As part of our Mother’s Day festivities I decided to try my hand at making homemade butter. It came out damn good if I do say so myself. I did find out about the mysteries of Ultra-Pasteurization (UP) along the way but first on to the butter.
To start out I had to track out some non-UP heavy cream. This turns out to be a lot harder than it seems. I ended up having to truck on down to Whole Foods. A few minutes of my time and $3.99 and I was in business. When I got home I poured the cream into a quart jar as it needs to sit a room temperature and sour for about 8 hours.
After the cream has ripened put a lid on it and “shake what your Momma gave ya.” Shake it for all you are worth for about 10 minutes. After the first minute or so I felt the solid start to form but kept on going. It reminded me of that creepy infomercial with the Shake-It weight. When my impromptu work out was over the butter looked like this:
I poured out the actual butter milk into a pint jar.
I can’t wait to make some Sourdough Butter Milk Pancakes with it. After the buttermilk is poured off the butter needs to be washed as the remaining buttermilk will go rancid before the butter does. To do this put the butter lump(?) into a bowl with a splash of cold water.
Using a spoon keep pushing the butter into the corner of the bowl and squeeze the buttermilk out of it. Keep this up with fresh water until the water remains clear. Salt the butter to taste and enjoy. The salt helps to keep the butter fresher longer so it is not just to jack up my BP. The end product is Damn good!!!
As I went out on my search for non-UP heavy cream I ended up looking into what the heck Ultra-Pasteurization actually is. Basically it heating the cream up to kill anything inside of it. Usually I feel this is a good thing but in this case it yields a “dead” food as the heats kills everything, good or bad. Yogurt, cheese, and butter can’t be made from UP products. I figure this can’t entirely be good. It seems to me that the main reason for the UP process is so milk products can be trucked insanely long distances without spoiling. It sort of makes me yearn for a Family Cow.
Inspired by-The Urban Homestead
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I think I’m going to have to go on down to the whole foods store tomorrow and get some heavy cream and give this a try with my kids. I think they will appreciate the effort that goes into making it — and fresh butter is soooo good !!! Thanks for sharing.
I can’t wait for my son to be old enough to enjoy something like this. Good luck and let us know how you make out.
Wow. I’m interested in trying this but I’m not sure I would ever be able to shake it enough. Do you think an electric mixed would work?
You can do it! It really wasn’t that bad at all. I’ve also read that you can use a food processor with a plastic attachment in it.
This may sound a bit cliche, but I hope you didn’t get any flies in your buttermilk!!
There is probably a reason it is a cliche though.
I made butter by accident once whipping cream for way too long with a mixer. Thanks for reminding me to try it again. This time I think I’ll shake, since I can use the exercise.