What’s Fresh Now? (April 2008)
Hopefully, our coldest days are behind us, but a cozy homemade breakfast is good anytime. Here we feature homemade butter made with fresh local, organic cream. A ”by-product” of buttermaking is buttermilk. This can be used to make homemade pancakes (recipe following).
Making your own butter is very easy and takes about 20-30 minutes. More importantly, by making your own, you can eliminate one more source of plastic in your home and offer your family a much healthier alternative, one that is free of pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones. And besides, it’s fun!
Handmade, Homemade Butter
Starting with organic cream, here heavy whipping cream is used (available at the Good Food Store), and a quart mason jar you will have delicious butter in about 20 minutes. You will also want to have handy a small jar, bowl, spatula or spoon, and a container to store you butter when done.
Set the cream out on the counter to warm up to about room temperature prior to the start. Start by pouring the cream into a quart mason jar, secure the lid, and start shaking!
After about 2 minutes a thick cream will start to form. After about 5 minutes, it will become a very thick, heavy cream.
After 8 minutes, the cream will start to separate from the sides of the glass jar and the shaking will become a bit more difficult. You may stop and take a break here, if you wish.
At about 14-15 minutes, the whey (buttermilk) will start to separate from the butter and the shaking will become much easier at this point.
At about 16 minutes, the butter will be very visible and there will be a lot more whey. At this point, you can start pouring off the whey (buttermilk) into a small container or jar.
Continue shaking for a few more minutes, until the butter has solidified more and there is no more whey (buttermilk) left to pour off.
Place your newly made butter into a bowl. Add cold water to the butter and use a spoon or spatula to “massage” your butter. Pour off the water and repeat. This process will “rinse” the last of the whey (buttermilk) from your butter.
Place your butter into a container for storage. Here, a margarine container is being repurposed for storage of the homemade butter.
Using the buttermilk (aka whey) left from the butter making process….
Easy Homemade Pancakes
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tblsp oil
1 cup flour
1 Tblsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda