Thursday, August 2, 2012

Making Butter

As a teacher, I have made butter with my class many times.  This fits in nicely with our Colonial America unit and in learning about states of matter.  The kids are always amazed at how easy it is to make butter and some have reported they made it again from scratch for special occasions.

Recently, I have taken to making my own butter at home.  We don't have any milk producing animals (yet), but we do get delivery from a local farm.  This is a small, grass-based, dairy farm which offers whole, 1%, and skim milk, some flavored milks, 1/2 & 1/2, heavy cream, along with yogurt, kefir, and sometimes farm fresh cheese and butter.  We cannot buy grass-based (or even local) dairy products in our grocery stores, so we appreciate this local dairy- especially since they deliver!  Granted, they don't deliver to the city we live in or the town our farm is in, but they do deliver to the town my husband works in, so we get delivery there.

Anyway, as I mentioned, butter is sometimes available.  This means I either need to stock up and freeze the butter when I can get my hands on it, buy regular butter from the grocery store if it is unavailable, or make my own.  Since I know it is not difficult, I have chosen to make my own.
A pint of heavy cream.

Each week, we get a pint of heavy cream delivered with our order.  When we are ready to make butter, we let it sit out for a while to warm a bit.  Then one of us (my husband has taken to making butter) pours the cream into a quart sized, wide-mouth canning jar and secures the lid .  Who needs to buy an expensive butter churn?  At that point, whoever is making the butter shakes the jar (or you can take turns with multiple people and share the shaking).  In about 20 minutes or so, you are left with butter and buttermilk (traditional buttermilk).  The pint sized jar will give us just under 1/2 pound of butter and about 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk.
Sure, the food processor or stand mixer could do the job, but why use the electricity?


Ready to shake.
I pour the buttermilk into a pint sized canning jar to store in the refrigerator.  The butter goes into the refrigerator to cool for a bit, and then I will strain it further (trying to remove as much buttermilk as possible).  It can be kneaded and rinsed under cold water to further remove the excess buttermilk. I make unsalted butter, but salt can be added to make salted butter.  At that point,the fresh, higher quality butter is ready to be used, or can be frozen.
Butter floating at the top.
Separated butter and buttermilk (almost 2 cups) ready to go!
We use the buttermilk in baking- buttermilk bread, buttermilk pancakes,
biscuits, coffee cake, etc.