The
last time I churned butter was on the farm—
I was maybe 6 yrs—when
Granny West let me turn the paddles on the churner. For maybe one
turn, and then I was tried. So making butter out of cream is no
big
secret, but I recently saw it done on a cooking show, and filed it
away, along with 50 other things I'll likely never get around to. But
yesterday when I picked up a pound of Land O Lakes butter priced at
$5.39, I balked. Went back to the milk section and picked up a
quart
of heavy whipping cream for about the same price.
A little earlier today I plopped the whole carton of cream into my
Cuisinart, and in about 18-20 minutes I had a big ball of butter.
Squeezed the remaining water out with cheese cloth and poured the
butter milk back into the carton. About a half qt. BTW, this
butter
does not taste like store bought. It's very sweet and clean
tasting.
And the butter milk tastes great! I didn't add salt, but you can (so
you can leave it unrefrigerated which we do anyway).
Hint. If you
have slaves or
children, pour some heavy cream into a jar and let them shake it until
the buttermilk separates. Make it a game. When they get used to
that
pioneering fun, teach them how to shoot squirrels in the back yard.
You're welcome.
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Been a LONG time since I was involved in makin buddah. As I recall, you got some cream (the milkman used to deliver it in little bottles) by letting the milk sit in the icebox overnite (wasn't homogenized in those days, so the cream rose to the top).
ReplyDeleteYou put the skim back in the icebox (a box with a big cake of ice in it for the cold) and let the cream stand in a closed container for around half a day or so to "ripen."
Then you put it in this little steel box on a foot treadle and worked your butt off 'til it solidified. Can't remember exactly how that little box worked, but I know it had some kind of small paddles in it. The treadle was like the old sewing machine treadles. No idea where my grandmother got it.
Seems to me a pint of cream made what would equate to about two sticks of butter, but since it always got scraped out in lumps and put on a saucer, I donno. That was back around 1945 or so.
Mom also had a churn made of glass, looked like a mason jar with a brass crank on top and a paddle inside. It got broke, tho, by a housecat, as I recall. Mom liked to put salt in her butter.
Slaves, children. Same thing. Until they graduate high school.
ReplyDeleteAmazon has a collection of glass jar butter churns like the ones my Georgia kinfolk used in the 60's. After the butter was firmed up
ReplyDeleteit was then put in a wooden press/shaper that stamped a nice little design on the the top of the finished product. Excellent on hot biscuits with a little cane syrup.
Churn THIS, Baby! Just get a good grip and pump it up and down.
ReplyDelete