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Tuesday 14 August 2012

Butter!

I am going to try and hand make as many Christmas presents this year as I can. Some of them I will be crocheting (must use up the wool I currently have so that I have space the the wool I'm going to need for the presents!), others I will be baking. I plan on making jams, and chutneys, and butter.

Butter you say? Yes, butter. I discovered it's actually a pretty easy thing to do.

You see, you buy a pot of double cream. You put some cold water in the fridge/freezer (but don't let it freeze over!)

You then whisk it. A lot


Starts off pretty easy
As you whisk, the cream obviously gets thicker

STILL the easy bit
As you whisk, as it gets thicker, the cream starts to change colour. It becomes yellowy, and a whiteish liquid starts to run off.

This is where it starts getting more difficult...
 At this point, you "rinse" the cream with cold water. I first tipped out the buttermilk into a container (that's what comes out of the cream), and then poured cold water over the cream, tipping that out. Buttermilk makes a wonderful replacement for milk in pancakes!

You then continue whisking. I had to change to a balloon whisk and not a hand whisk, due to the cream getting so thick and, well...buttery! It was at this point I wished I had an electric whisk. My hand felt like it was going to fall off!

Butter!
And so you continue until you get no more buttermilk. It's not easy to do with a balloon whisk and a hand whisk, but it took me about half an hour to get this:

So worth the arm ache!
You can add herbs, salt, or just leave it plain. I just salted it a little. Yes, I could have just bought it from the shops, but I like knowing I can make my own butter and give it as gifts to others.

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