Post by Lannie on Oct 19, 2008 11:46:09 GMT -5
I finally made butter last night for the first time in 10 years. The only other time I ever did it was for "practice" when I thought I might someday want to get a cow, and I used a quart of storebought (ugh) whipping cream and a mayonnaise jar. I got a lump of butter from that and decided it was easy enough to do.
But now, I don't have time to sit and shake a jar, plus my arm muscles have more important things to do, so this is what I did yesterday. I started out with a quart of nice thick Bandit-cream, which I took out of the fridge in the morning, stirred up, and let sit out until about 4:00 in the afternoon, when I finally had the time to do something about it. I decided to try using the handheld mixer because last time I tried it in the KitchenAide, it didn't break. Which reminds me, yesterday wasn't the first time in 10 years, it was the second time. I tried last year with someone else's raw cream and it wouldn't butterify.
So I stood there with the mixer for 15 minutes (I just used one of the beaters, trying to simulate a butter churn, weak as that attempt might have been), and all I got was thick cream. And the other thing I got was weed-whacker arm, which was NOT good because I had to go milk Bandit at 5:00. So I stopped with the mixer and went and got my KFC book and read what Joann said about making butter. She likes to use the food processor with the plastic dough blade (I don't have a plastic blade), but said she'd also made it in the big mixer with the beater paddle. I have one of those, so I cleaned out my KitchenAide bowl and filled it with hot water to warm it up, then dried it off and put my cream in with the beater paddle running. I could only go up to Speed 2, because higher than that, it splashed out all over the place. No, I don't have a splash-guard, either.
So the KitchenAide ran and ran and ran, and then I realized it was almost 5:00 and I had to go out to milk, so I turned it off, covered it with a towel and went out to milk. By the time I got done with that, and feeding the horses and chickens and filling water and scooping poop and wrestling Cricket and... well, you get the picture - it was 6:00. So I started the mixer again and let it run while I was washing buckets and rags, and FINALLY, it started looking grainy. It never went through the whipped cream stage, just thickish cream. Anyway, within a minute or two it broke and I had gobs of butter and thin buttermilk.
I poured it through a flour sack dish towel into a bowl, then submerged the butter (still in the cloth) into a bowl of ice-water because the coldest water from our tap is 60 degrees. That firmed it up well and I had a glob of beautiful yellow butter.
Then I tried to press the water out of it. What a MESS! I used my wooden cutting board and a flat wooden spatula. Would you believe my grandmother gave me a butter paddle years ago, but I didn't know what it was and I either lost it or left it with an ex, but I don't have it anymore. The flat wooden spatula was the best I could do, and I did get some water (more like buttermilk, it wasn't clear) out, but not a lot. I had to scrape up the glob a couple of times and submerge it in the icewater while I was doing this to keep it firm.
Finally I decided I'd had enough and put the butter in a little plastic tupperware dish. I got a whole 6 ounces of butter from that quart of cream. Needless to say, my buttermilk tastes rather rich and creamy.
If I was to sell any of my butter (NOT!), I'd have to charge $50 a pound for it! LOL! That was HARD! But, oh my, that butter is GOOD! And such a beautiful shade of yellow. It makes the store-bought butter look anemic by comparison.
Given my limited utensils (KitchenAide with beater paddle and whisk, food processor with metal blade), can anyone suggest a better way to do this? And how the heck do I get all the buttermilk and/or water out when I'm done? At this point, it doesn't matter a whole lot because I made such a small amount, it won't be around long enough to go bad, but at some point, I'd like to start making all our own butter, and then it will have to keep for a while in the freezer or fridge.
Oh, and the reason I don't have a churn is we can't afford one. I'd like to try using what I have, even if I have to get another gadget for one of them. Like maybe I can keep using the KitchenAide if I get a splash guard, or maybe I can find a plastic blade for the food processor. But I'd like to hear how those of you who don't have proper churns make butter, and how you work it and finish it.
Help?
~Lannie
P.S. I'm sorry this is so long, but I wanted to make sure to say everything I did, so that someone wouldn't suggest something I'd already done, you know?
But now, I don't have time to sit and shake a jar, plus my arm muscles have more important things to do, so this is what I did yesterday. I started out with a quart of nice thick Bandit-cream, which I took out of the fridge in the morning, stirred up, and let sit out until about 4:00 in the afternoon, when I finally had the time to do something about it. I decided to try using the handheld mixer because last time I tried it in the KitchenAide, it didn't break. Which reminds me, yesterday wasn't the first time in 10 years, it was the second time. I tried last year with someone else's raw cream and it wouldn't butterify.
So I stood there with the mixer for 15 minutes (I just used one of the beaters, trying to simulate a butter churn, weak as that attempt might have been), and all I got was thick cream. And the other thing I got was weed-whacker arm, which was NOT good because I had to go milk Bandit at 5:00. So I stopped with the mixer and went and got my KFC book and read what Joann said about making butter. She likes to use the food processor with the plastic dough blade (I don't have a plastic blade), but said she'd also made it in the big mixer with the beater paddle. I have one of those, so I cleaned out my KitchenAide bowl and filled it with hot water to warm it up, then dried it off and put my cream in with the beater paddle running. I could only go up to Speed 2, because higher than that, it splashed out all over the place. No, I don't have a splash-guard, either.
So the KitchenAide ran and ran and ran, and then I realized it was almost 5:00 and I had to go out to milk, so I turned it off, covered it with a towel and went out to milk. By the time I got done with that, and feeding the horses and chickens and filling water and scooping poop and wrestling Cricket and... well, you get the picture - it was 6:00. So I started the mixer again and let it run while I was washing buckets and rags, and FINALLY, it started looking grainy. It never went through the whipped cream stage, just thickish cream. Anyway, within a minute or two it broke and I had gobs of butter and thin buttermilk.
I poured it through a flour sack dish towel into a bowl, then submerged the butter (still in the cloth) into a bowl of ice-water because the coldest water from our tap is 60 degrees. That firmed it up well and I had a glob of beautiful yellow butter.
Then I tried to press the water out of it. What a MESS! I used my wooden cutting board and a flat wooden spatula. Would you believe my grandmother gave me a butter paddle years ago, but I didn't know what it was and I either lost it or left it with an ex, but I don't have it anymore. The flat wooden spatula was the best I could do, and I did get some water (more like buttermilk, it wasn't clear) out, but not a lot. I had to scrape up the glob a couple of times and submerge it in the icewater while I was doing this to keep it firm.
Finally I decided I'd had enough and put the butter in a little plastic tupperware dish. I got a whole 6 ounces of butter from that quart of cream. Needless to say, my buttermilk tastes rather rich and creamy.
If I was to sell any of my butter (NOT!), I'd have to charge $50 a pound for it! LOL! That was HARD! But, oh my, that butter is GOOD! And such a beautiful shade of yellow. It makes the store-bought butter look anemic by comparison.
Given my limited utensils (KitchenAide with beater paddle and whisk, food processor with metal blade), can anyone suggest a better way to do this? And how the heck do I get all the buttermilk and/or water out when I'm done? At this point, it doesn't matter a whole lot because I made such a small amount, it won't be around long enough to go bad, but at some point, I'd like to start making all our own butter, and then it will have to keep for a while in the freezer or fridge.
Oh, and the reason I don't have a churn is we can't afford one. I'd like to try using what I have, even if I have to get another gadget for one of them. Like maybe I can keep using the KitchenAide if I get a splash guard, or maybe I can find a plastic blade for the food processor. But I'd like to hear how those of you who don't have proper churns make butter, and how you work it and finish it.
Help?
~Lannie
P.S. I'm sorry this is so long, but I wanted to make sure to say everything I did, so that someone wouldn't suggest something I'd already done, you know?