Homemade Butter

This evening I will be sharing a project that Chris actually undertook and completed while I was out of town. He bought the supplies, took the pictures, and shared the results.  I get to write the post.  :-)

As we have been reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (I mentioned this in my kombucha post), we have been more convinced and convicted to really get back to the roots of our food.  We want to prepare our food from the most natural state in which it comes.  The least processed.  And prepare it in the most nourishing way.  Usually that ends up being the most 'traditional' way.

While I was gone today, Chris made butter.  mmmm.

Here's how it all went down.  He started with two quarts of organic heavy whipping cream from a local yogurt maker, Seven Stars Farm.  We actually drove out to the farm earlier this week, but the cream is only available on Tuesdays at the farm.  Luckily, Kimberton Whole Foods carries it!  It would be great to get raw cream and make raw butter, but the sale of raw butter is illegal in PA!

Next, take the cream and dump it into a (the AWESOME Kitchen Aid that Chris got me for Christmas) food processor .  Process it using the metal blade for about a minute-- until the butterfat separates from the buttermilk.

Then, take it out of the food processor, and separate the buttermilk from the butter.  Pour it into a mesh strainer and squish it in with your hands to get as much buttermilk out of the butter as possible.  Then rinse it in water. (Look at how beautiful and yellow it is!!! No extra food coloring here.)

From the mesh strainer, put it in a clean cloth and squeeze it to get the last bits of buttermilk out of the butter.  The buttermilk will spoil the butter, and that's why it's important to get as much out as possible. Rinsing with water also helps.

Finally, when you are satisfied that there was no more buttermilk in the butter, form it into a pretty ball.  :-)  and take a picture.

So, we didn't weigh the butter at the end of this, but Chris guesses that each quart of heavy cream made about 12oz. of butter. Here's the finished product:

We also bought some raw milk last week.  We let the cream separate from the milk, skimmed it off and Chris made butter out of that.  We got about 2 1/2 cups of cream from a gallon of milk, and that made about 4oz. So now, we have about 28oz. of homemade, delicious butter. Yum!