I made butter over the weekend! I've always wanted to try, and when Hazel did it at school and came home from school with the 'recipe' I had to give it a go. I put a cup of cream into an old mayo jar and shook for a surprisingly brief period of time until I thought perhaps it was butter. But it didn't look quite right, so I kept going even though the shaking seemed a bit ineffective and more like slopping a mass from side to side, and then suddenly there was buttermilk and this glorious yellow butter! I mean really, how do you get yellow butter from white cream? Magic. A little pinch of salt et voila! I doubt it's economical but it's a heck of a lot of fun.
Apologies to my Instagram peeps who are probably thinking "not the butter again!"
I just want to taste it - I think I might have to do this, this week
ReplyDeleteYum, we do this quite often on the weekend. It's super good on fresh scones ;)
ReplyDeleteCool! I have been wanting to try this.... my mum started doing this a few months ago and keeps telling me to give it a try. There's cream in the fridge... maybe I should give it a go too :)
ReplyDeleteYou should! It took surprisingly little effort considering how much people who have written about it online suggest it takes forever. Perhaps our cream here is just so chock-full of butterfat it's easier?
ReplyDeleteDo you put salt in it? I put some in after I'd made it and it didn't seem to integrate all that well and I wondered what would happen if you put some into the cream before you start.
ReplyDeleteFresh butter for breakfast! It took around 5 minutes of decent shaking and then another 5 of slopping the more solid mass to do it, so it's not too hard for just a cup of cream. I expect if you wanted more than half a cup of butter it would take a bit longer though.
ReplyDeleteI have crumpets in the fridge.... will definately being trying it in the morning....mmmnnn
ReplyDeleteOh, my son's reading book this book was making butter from cream...I thought it sounded all so hard shaking that jar, but there you go. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThat's impressive, but I'm more amazed that you're on the other side of the world and have the same dinnerware set that we do at home :D
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that's butter!!
ReplyDeleteI have Ashley English's dairy making book and butter seems a tedious process (and a big workout with all that shaking!). I do recall your dairy tasting mote creamier than ours - those beautiful NZ fields for all the cows to gobble.
It's our wedding china! And I think we already knew we have similar tastes - in books and now in china.
ReplyDeleteSomeone on Instagram wanted to know if I'd touched up the photo, but no it's actually that colour! I really was surprised how quickly it came together once it started to thicken up. But if you were doing more than a cup I bet it wouldn't be so easy, or with less creamy cream. Someone on a blog I checked out when researching this was making butter from skim milk! Well she said she was anyways.
ReplyDeleteIt looks fantastic but be careful. You don't know where this self-sufficiency might end!
ReplyDeleteThis looks yummy and interesting. I might try it one of these days.
ReplyDeleteIt looks great! if you use a plastic jar you can chuck a clean marble in there too to speed up the process a little. I might have to go pick up some cream when I pop in for milk, this is just the right kind of weather for scones and crumpets with lovely fresh butter.
ReplyDeleteHave you been doing this marvellous thing all this time and not sharing? There will be words next time I see you if there isn't fresh butter and scones!
ReplyDeleteYou should, it's kind of magical as well as yummy!
ReplyDeleteYeah, next thing I'll be living in a shack in the woods and refusing to pay my taxes. Butter, the slippery slope.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. My husband thinks this is quite inspirational (at first he was like yeah whatever, till he saw the photo). We will be jumping on the butter bandwagon tomorrow. It HAS to be done at least once I think!
ReplyDeleteOh and I meant to say that I'll try using my tupperware shaker with the insert.
ReplyDeletenot exactly! we hardly ever do it but we have done. first tried it at a traditional farming stall at an ARC open day a few years ago. It's very cool. but we are suckers enough for butter around here without wanting to make it even more inviting....I will gladly produce some butter and scones as penance for not sharing though.
ReplyDeleteSo yellow! Will have to try next time I see some reduced price cream...
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to become as self relient as possible and this was one ingredient I was wanting but not even looking for. Fell upon this on pinterest and definitely getting pinned!!!
ReplyDeleteSo... some silly questions... how long does it keep? and can you cook with it like normal butter. Just curious. If all else fails I could just use it for toasts and what not and keep a small tub of the generico stuff around for cooking with.
thanks for sharing though!!!
recipe... not ingredient! ha ha
ReplyDeleteWell I'm not an expert by any means, having only done it twice now but as far as I know butter is butter, so this should behave just like the stuff you buy in the supermarket. I suppose it's possible there might be a bit more buttermilk in there than the commercial stuff so perhaps it might burn more quickly if melted in a pan? I understand that it's important to get as much of the buttermilk out of it when it's finished, as that will affect its keeping properties - but I don't know how much; and if you're going to eat it all in one go on warm scones then I guess that's not much of an issue (ahem). I rinsed it under the tap and just sort of kneaded it around in my hand, you can see the milky residue coming out of little cracks and holes in it as you move the butter around. The second time I tried doing it at a friend's she put a pinch of salt in when it was still liquid and that was much better than adding it in at the end. You don't need much salt at all.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!