Calling All Butter Lovers

I love being married to a scientist. Really, I do. There are times when I wouldn't have ever thought it was possible let alone even EASY to do some things in the kitchen. One of the most recent things Eric has been exploring is butter. Not just your standard run-of-the-mill butter, rather French or European Style butter. This is an amazing (and in fact preferred) butter for pastry making (...another thing hogging the lime light in our house), especially since I do the grocery shopping and I do not buy shortening.

So when I think about butter I imagine some Little House on the Prairie/Anne of Green Gables type chick, bonnet and all, with an old-school butter churn outside on the front porch. Now this image might just be unique to me, although I think I'm not alone with this association. Alas, another reason why I am so thankful I was born when I was, no bonnets, no butter churn, rather ponytails and a KitchenAid.

Basically I am trying to sell you on this idea of making your own butter. It also fits in with the 100 Mile Diet and the Omnivores Dilemma if you really break it down to fossil fuel usage and supporting your local agricultural community. But in all honesty, I just think this is pretty stinking cool.

I must say, from cream and a smidge of store bought buttermilk or organic whole milk yogurt, you get not ONLY about 3/4 lb of butter, but you get about 2 cups of buttermilk as well. You can make it Salted or Unsalted, given your baking needs.

Eric made AMAZING croissants with it and pastry crust (which, by the way, there may be another blog post coming about the newest "best" pie crust recipe...)

So, for you butter loving brave and not so brave souls... Here is your challenge... just try it. You'll impress yourself.

Homemade Butter and Buttermilk (adapted from New York Times)

4 cups (1 quart) heavy cream (do not use whipping cream that has stabilizers such as carrageenan and mono- and di-triglycerides). We used local Wisconsin heavy cream.

1/3 cup good yogurt (we used Stonyfields organic) OR 1/3 cup cultured buttermilk. Alternatively you can buy a packet of pure buttermilk cultures and give more consistent results. I will probably try that next time

Salt to taste (optional).

1. Stir the cream and the yogurt together in a large non-reactive bowl (plastic or stainless-steel). Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 18 hours at room temperature. After 18 hours it will start to get thick and taste like cultured buttermilk.

2. Pour the cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk and start mixer on medium-high speed. The cream will go through the whipped stage, thicken further and then change color from off-white to pale yellow; this will take at least 5 to 8 minutes. When it starts to look pebbly, it’s almost done. After another minute the butter will separate. Careful: it will start to splash so turn down the mixer to low until you form pebble-sized pieces of butter. You don't want to let the butter to fully clump in one mass yet because you want to wash it of excess buttermilk proteins with gives it a longer storage life. Following the step-by-step method below should make it clear what to do.

3. Set a strainer over a bowl. Pour the contents of the mixer into the strainer and let the buttermilk drain through. Strain the buttermilk again, this time through a fine-mesh sieve set over a small bowl; set aside.

4. Now add about a quart of cold water to the butter granules and use the mixer to wash the excess buttermilk from the butter. Repeat the straining process, but throw away this water mixture.

5. Keeping the butter in the strainer set over the first bowl, knead it to consolidate the remaining liquid and fat and expel the rest of the buttermilk. Knead until the texture is dense and creamy, about 5 minutes. Strain the excess liquid into the buttermilk. Refrigerate the buttermilk.

6. Mix salt into the butter, if you want. Make sure you wrap the butter in plastic wrap and THEN aluminum foil. Aluminum foil will keep out unwanted flavors and odors that butter can pick up in the refrigerator.

Around Wisconsin we can get heavy cream for about 3.00 dollars a quart which makes slightly less than a pound of butter. 1 lb of Land-O-Lakes butter costs about 3 dollars a pound. 1 pound of Plugra or other European style butter (another is Vermont Butter and Cheese) can be around 6 to 8 dollars a LB!! So, I think it is worth it.