Butter
I made my own butter, once. Well, I made the attempt. It was for a tea party in the back garden of my house in England. I had made banana bread and apricot jam and as I had seen fresh butter made very simply on a BBC cooking show, I thought it would top off this homemade extravaganza with style.
The recipe [I found a US version just now] called for milk, a wooden clothespin, and a jar. The process: add milk and clothespin to jar, close and shake until whipped butter begins to collect on the wood. For some reason, I thought they had said you could use skim milk, so I did that. No surprise [well not now] it never came together. After the party I figured it out it was whipping cream that was needed. Sigh. No homemade butter.
Flash-forward many years later, my dream of homemade butter still lingers and my memory of my butter-disaster still festers. The NYT has come to the rescue with an article about homemade butter. The recipe is a bit more complex as it calls for more equipment but basically the concept is the same: whip whipping cream past the whipped point onto the butter point.
Now if I only ate bread.
The recipe [I found a US version just now] called for milk, a wooden clothespin, and a jar. The process: add milk and clothespin to jar, close and shake until whipped butter begins to collect on the wood. For some reason, I thought they had said you could use skim milk, so I did that. No surprise [well not now] it never came together. After the party I figured it out it was whipping cream that was needed. Sigh. No homemade butter.
Flash-forward many years later, my dream of homemade butter still lingers and my memory of my butter-disaster still festers. The NYT has come to the rescue with an article about homemade butter. The recipe is a bit more complex as it calls for more equipment but basically the concept is the same: whip whipping cream past the whipped point onto the butter point.
Now if I only ate bread.
Comments
Making homemade butter is also an amazing children's party trick or good way of getting your Thanksgiving Dinner party guests to unify. It takes about 15 minutes of vigorous adult shaking (or 30 minutes of children shaking) to get the butter formed. I've done this twice at children's parties and you'd be amazed at how mesmerized the kids become (and the adults as well).
i'm gonna try it this weekend. make from GF blueberry cornbread and some butter. with a side of lactaid pills of course.
thanks bo!