My schedule this semester is arranged such that I have every Thursday and Friday off. Rather than just fritter this time away, I’ve decided that I’m going to spend it doing things I enjoy, like cooking. And since I have this blog, I might as well document my projects.
I found a few sets of instructions for how to make butter, but essentially it’s just a matter of over-whipping cream. I decided to try the food processor method but I immediately regretted it, because my little thrift store Cuisinart didn’t hold an entire quart of cream.
I used local organic cream for this, because I figured this was already not going to save me any money so I might as well spend a little more. Clover Organic Whipping Cream was $3.39/pint at Berkeley Bowl vs. $2.99/pint for the Berkeley Farms non-organic.
I dumped most of the cream into the Cuisinart and started it up. Nothing much happened for a minute or so and then the cream started to thicken.
This is what it looks like as it starts to develop a little texture.
At this point I stopped the mixer because I thought it might be close to done, but it turned out that this was the far end of the “whipped cream” part of the process. The cream was looking firm, like butter, but none of the buttermilk had separated yet. I powered on through.
The butter lost it’s firm texture and then quickly took on this kind of overcooked scrambled egg look.
After a few more seconds, all the little granules of butter formed into more or less one lump and the buttermilk started to separate. It was actually working! I don’t know why but before this point I wasn’t sure it was going to work.
I started pouring off the buttermilk, there wasn’t much.
This next stage became kind of a pain, the butter mostly just stuck to the side of the container so I kept having to scrape it down with a spatula.
In order to get the last bits of buttermilk out of the butter, you have to add water run the Cuisinart and then pour it off. You repeat the process until the water runs clear. This went on for a while.
After there wasn’t any buttermilk left in the butter, I transferred it to a mixing bowl. The idea is that you press it against the side of the bowl to get the last bits of water out.
I added a little salt and mixed it in, and it was done.
The final product. It was actually more than I expected.
That’s it. Making butter is expensive and messy, but it did taste pretty good when I was done.
