One of my favorite cookbooks is actually called, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. The author talks about which foods make more sense to create from scratch at home and which ones are better to just buy. In the bigger picture, yes, butter for recipes and daily life is easier to buy. But, the pure beauty and Wow! factor of homemade butter is just divine.
We had tried our hand at butter-making a couple other times in the past, but we were re-inspired after watching this video from the wonderful folks at Shelburne Farms. (Check out all their videos and links–they are amazing!) So, we grabbed some heavy cream and one of our Mason jars and got to work. We shook and shook. It only took about 5 minutes to get some beautiful whipped cream. The butter took a bit longer. I think the wonderful part about this activity is its parallel to so many of our goals in life. At first, you’re just shaking and shaking the jar and it doesn’t seem like anything is happening…BUT, it is! And then we were ready to give in at the whipped cream stage and just spread that on our gorgeous loaf of local bread, but we kept going. This was the part that really seemed impossible at first. How was a jar of whipped cream suddenly going to transform into butter? But, keep going. It’ll start to form a clump. Then, keep going. Suddenly you will feel and hear the liquid you heard in the first stages. Only this time, the liquid is buttermilk that has separated from a lovely little ball of butter.
Homemade butter on fresh bread is one of the best treats I can think of. I added some salt and crushed rosemary to mine. Wow. I highly recommend everyone give this a try at least once.
Some tips:
-I later read that it helps to leave the heavy cream out of the fridge for a bit (an hour?) before starting to help speed the process. Noted
-As Cat says in the video, it’s definitely a good project to do with friends, as your arms may get tired.
-This is a good lesson in trust and perseverance. The butter will happen. I promise.
-Save the buttermilk and make something with it. (Pancakes?)
-We were wondering why they didn’t just add the salt during the mixing/shaking stage, until we realized the buttermilk would be affected.
-This is a great opportunity to look at pics and videos of old-fashioned butter churners. (Word to the wise-Do NOT just type in “butter churner” and look at images in front of your kid–eeps! Make sure to include the word “old-fashioned” or “traditional,” or preview ahead of time.)