Thanks to Jeremy and Leon, I was inspired for a little project… making our own butter. It’s as simple as a little heavy whipping cream and a jar. You fill the jar ½ to 2/3 full, seal it, and shake like mad for a while. After a while it stops sloshing…. Keep shaking. Eventually you get a ball of soft butter in a pool of buttermilk. Drain off the butter milk, and basically you have butter. (Seriously, this is the point where we tasted it, and it was NOTHING like the store bought. SOOOOOOOO good.)
So we all took our turns shaking. It was primarily the Eldest Son’s job, but each of us got several tries. The kids were so cute finding creative ways to keep that jar shaking. Plus, with the littlest ones struggling to learn to share and take turns, this was great practice.
When the butter ball was finally formed, I took out the sealing lid and replaced it with cheese cloth, and screwed the lid rim back on. (You know, those two part canning lids?) Then I simply let it drain for a while as I put some ice in a metal bowl. When I got as much of the butter milk out as I could, I plopped the butter ball into the bowl with the ice, and used a plastic spoon to smoosh and smoosh. While the ice helps firm up the butter, the melting water helps remove the last of the buttermilk. (Buttermilk left in the butter makes the butter spoil faster.) As the butter released less and less water, I added chopped garlic, removed the ice, and packaged it all up for the fridge.
This so sounds like a ton of work, but it really isn’t. And it’s soooo worth it! Tonight, we’ll be slicing open sandwich rolls, and using the butter to griddle the insides nice and toasty… to serve pulled pork on. Yeah, this ought to be super good.
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