Yes I do make our own butter at home!

Very CWA-ish?

Heheh

Since I've obtained this wonder machine called "Thermomix", I've stopped buying butter from the shops. Instead I just buy cream and turn it into butter - an much healthy option for us! Sally Fallon says so in her book "Nourishing Traditions" - there are many links, but actually this book's so good that I can't bear lending it out... Links: http://www.rejoiceinlife.com/books/bookNour.php and http://www.westonaprice.org/ .

Anyhow...

Last night, after making two batches of butter, I realised I need to document on making butter for your pleasure. So here it is:

What ya would need -

• a carton of cream - it is always best to buy them when they're on special!
• Thermomix machine
• Water (filtered and chilled the better for this - I've only got rainwater so I've got the best, heh)
• EVOO - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt
• A container for butter - I found this container at Spotlight a few years ago and loves it

Please excuse the mess - I ve 'grated' the large block of perconi cheese and stored in the freezer for future use - quite yummy cheese - and I've done two batches of butter before this demo. And I got the dinner going in middle of all this as well...

This is the Thermomix - my favourite kitchen assistant:

My family call this "RobotChef"! You can look up more from this link - http://www.thermomix.com.au

 Right - let's start making this homemade butter!

Just bung in the cream - the whole 600ml of it in the Thermomix:

And let it 'churn' for a minute or so with that feature (it is called a "butterfly") in place - if the cream is closer to the due date, the process will be quicker than any fresh-er cream. It only took me a minute here! I am sure my great grandma Alma is turning over in her grave and  muttering, "what it is with those young people nowadays - so lazy!" - it would have taken her hours to get hers churned into butter with one of those equipments!

Anyway, when it has churned into butter - the difference between 'thick/whipped' cream and this is quite obviously:

We'd just need to drain out the buttermilk, a lovely fresh buttermilk good for cooking, drinking or feed to chooks - I do any of those three, whenever I feel like it :D

This 500ml glass jar contains buttermilk from 3 x 600ml cream cartons drained after churned. It is stored in fridge for a while till I get around to cook something with it.

See what we ended up with after draining buttermilk:

Full of yellow lumpy thingy inside the bowl, eh? That's butter, uncultured and unsalted but also uncleansed!!

Let us cleanse the unholy thingy so it would be divine for us to spread it to the world, er um, I mean, on the bread!

So how do we do it? Wash it...  Duh!

Put approx a cup or two chilled and filtered water, (I just use rainwater off the tap, a wicked gal that I am!) and let the RobotChef wash it for us 3 or 4 times (yep, repeat the hard and draining step - draining water and refill with 'fresh' water again and again, like three or four times!):

Hallelujah! The water looks more 'clean', however it needs a bit of working. Sighs, here we go, more working to do! A mother's job is never finished... er um, sorry - back on butter...

Lets squeeze every water drop out of butter.

Unfortunately this almost useful RobotChef cannot do the step, so it calls for me to do it. The sacrifices I do  around here....sighs...

Using my trusty green spatula, I kept pressing on the butter so water can drain off to the end of bowl as seen above - drain it off and do again until you felt you've beaten up the butter enough.

From here, there are two options:

1. Leave it as uncultured (how could we do that to this poor butter?) and unsalted - which would be suitable for cooking. However it would best to store in freezer until needed, as it would only last less 2 weeks in fridge. Out of three batches I've done here, I kept one such in freezer because I do run out of butter so fast around here.
2. Or we could have it cultured to our taste - and not so salty that it's not too pungent for us. This is where EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) and salt comes in. There is no certain amount of each in butter as it is all up to individual's taste. How nice buttery thing to do, eh?

What I have done, was to pour at least a tablespoon or two of EVOO and a teaspoon or two of salt in the butter and let RobotChef (finally!) mix it for 30 secs.

And that's it - we've got a divinely spreadable butter on our hands! And all for 5 minutes at most, including up to 3 mins with RobotChef - not bad!

Now, I am not done here - I gotta do the extra step!

Yes, I need to put it in this cute butter container! It is porcelain so I felt it is ok to keep it in pantry rather than in fridge - butter will just disappear within 1 week without us noticing it until it's time for me to make kids' school lunches one morning!!

Let us have a close-up of this divinely spreadable butter... ooh!

Yum!

So haven't I convinced you that I really do make my own butter without preservatives, additives and those whatever stuff other butters at shops have? Why don't ya try it one day?

Sorry my RobotChef is not available for hiring out! Definitely not... so there!

Off to make my own lunch with the most delicious butter... have I got you drooling yet?

*insert evil laugh* heheheh

But I have to be nice here - so here's the link to making your own butter with food processor:
http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/Making_Butter_at_Home.php

Let us know how you go with yours...

Cheers till later!