After watching a recent episode of MythBusters, I am inspired to make my own butter! Yes, Google is my friend and I will ask his opinion later but I’d like to ask my real, flesh and blood friends for their input and experience.
Thanks to Nourishing Traditions, we eat a little bit of butter. Okay, we probably eat a little too much of it but it’s better than margarine so it’s not all bad. Right? Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Aside from the fact that I just want to try it and see if it is fun, I have a sneaking suspicion that it might end up being cheaper than store-bought butter. What do you think?
my BIL and SIL makes their own butter from the raw dairy they buy (collected in their own bucket!) from a farm down the road… however, they live in rural Scandinavia so I’ve never been able to taste it 🙂
enjoy the adventure. I made icecream the other day, that was fun.
Oh yummo! Fresh butter from real milk. I can only dream of it. Sounds divine! Did you use an ice cream maker? We used to have one and we even used it… until someone put a little hole in it and all the gel that keeps it cold leaked out so I won’t use it any more.
Me thinks you might have fun keeping a cow in your yard!! We made butter for many years – with a butter churn, and also with an electric beater. Tips – After keeping the butter milk (you make it from the cream) make sure you wash it a number of times, and its nicer if a bit of salt is added after you’ve washed it. Get in there with your hands and squish it under the running tap. Have fun.
Hahaa Katie, I can only imagine the look on your face when you read this post! Susan making butter? Heheehaaa!
Do you think my old Kenwood that has an egg beater thingy would do the trick?
Not too sure – never tried it with that. Give it a go and see how it works. Just curious as to where you are getting your cream from. Thickened cream doesn’t make very good butter, and it’s so incipid.
Yes, I’ve read that about normal thickened cream. I was going to buy some organic, unhomogenised cream from the supermarket. It’s the best I can do for now. I don’t know of any dairies in my local area and I am again car-less. 😉
If you’re ever going down to Victor, might be worth a stop at Alexandrina Cheese Factory. Looks like they have pure jersey cream tubs up to 2L. That’s the best stuff for making butter.
I’ll keep that in mind, Katie. Good thing you wrote it down so that I can refer to it. You know I have a mind like a sieve.
Yeah we did it. We used thickened cream because it’s all we had access to and it turned up beautifully for us. Make sure you wash it very well though. We used an electric beater and it worked perfectly, though they’re not exagerating when they say it turns QUICK. 5 minutes of beating and then it happens in 10 seconds, watch your speed if you don’t want to be cleaning the whole kitchen up.
It dosen’t end up being cheaper for us, but in the same token it isn’t THAT much more expensive either. But this was buying from coles and woolies. If you had access to cheap cream or pure cream it could well end up cheaper. It’s only a 15 minute process when done with an electric beater. You end up with about 45% butter, 45% buttermilk, and 10% stuff that’s lost in the washing process. Remember you can freeze butter!
Good luck!
Thanks Abba12,
We wouldn’t need to freeze our butter… we go through a minimum of 500g per week. And the buttermilk can be used in pancakes (Yummo!) and biscuits.
I just want to try it. I might do it once or twice and then never do it again (that would be very typical of me) but I[ll have fun in the process and learn a lot. 🙂
So when you say you used an electric beater, do you mean a hand held electric egg beater?
Yep, sounds like the same machine, that’s all we used. One of these – http://images-en.busytrade.com/193394600/TOTA-504-Egg-Beater.jpg – Though, you’ve reminded me I should make some more, so I will try have to try it in my kitchenaid stand mixer this time around! I’ve also been told it can be done in a food processor, because it dosen’t need to be airated so much as it needs to be agitated, and even the blades of a food processor will do that. Haven’t tried a food processor personally though.
I’ve grown up eating margerine. I know butter is healthier but it really is an aquired taste, I’m trying to use it more but it’s hard. These days we’re about 50/50. I still can’t stand it when hubby ruins my mashed potatoes by putting it in though! (yes, they’re not healthy either, I know 🙁 lol) – he grew up eating butter.
While I think of it, I ended up getting the same juicer as you, the compact, and after putting it away while pregnant and very ill, I have brought it out again! It’s wonderful, but I was wondering, do you find the pulp is wetter than you expect? Hard things like carrot are fine, but if I juice something like tomatoes, I even end up with small drips of juice in the pulp tray. Don’t get me wrong, I’m getting plenty of juice, it isn’t pouring out both ends, but it just seems to be wetter than I expected. Is it just because it’s a cheaper machine (Though I have come to agree a cheaper machine is better than no machine at all), or should I consider looking at it on warranty?
You should post some juice recipies! I need inspiration because my complicated recipes have been failures, and the one fruit one veg recipes are getting a little bit repedetive. I want to use more unusual juicing veggies but I don’t know how to incoporate them successfully without using recipes that call for ginger and herbs and stuff I don’t have.
Sorry for going so off topic, but I just remembered you might know more than me about it lol.
Yep, that’s the sort I might use. I have plenty of appliances but an electric beater is so easy and quick to clean up. Let me know how you go using the kitchenaid. I’d love to hear of your results.
Mmmm, mashed potato with butter and sea salt. Yum! Any type of potato needs butter, in my opinion. 🙂
Oh you did get the juicer? Good on you! Our juicer doesn’t do the best job with super wet foods like watermelon, pineapple, tomatoes, kiwi, etc. Then the pulp will be quite wet. But as you have found, the drier type of fruits/veg juice to perfection.Apparently the Champions and other do the same thing. It’s the type of system it is – auger.
Okay, I’ll try and post a juice recipe later on this week. It’s a good one- extremely healthy.
Off topic? no such thing on my blog. 😉
We’ve made it from raw cream, and the taste is something else. I think we ate it in a day. 😛
I used just my regular electric beaters. In this weather ( if it’s as hot where you are!) you might want to ice a heap of water for washing it.
I don’t think it works out cheaper, but it was fun. Try not to eat all your butter before you get to make the pikelets with the buttermilk. 😉
Oh raw cream. I can only imagine! And no, it isn’t real hot here in SA. Nothing like the beautiful QLD weather, which I miss.
I made butter from The cream off the top of raw milk. It is so lovely. I do believe that butter’s nutritional benefits are maximized by the use of the raw unprocessed products.
I whipped it up in my thermomix for a minute or so. You don’t need to but you might need to add a bit of salt as the flavour is slightly different to store bought. When I had a big batch I froze it in ice cube trays for later use, but that didn’t happen very often. Haven’t made any for a while due to having half the family dairy free. Would love to have some again, although I would also like to try homemade ‘marg’ with olive oil and coconut oil base. Sounds nicer than what we use at the moment! Have fun and let us know how you get on.
Hi Bek,
It’s always lovely to hear from you. I wonder if producers add lots of other stuff to the store bought butter? Did you find your homemade butter more bland?
And yes, your Thermomix… you only said that to make me jealous now, didn’t you?
I used to make a butter type mixture as I way of getting Coconut Oil into my family. I would blend 500g butter with some olive oil and some coconut oil. The other benefit is that you can put this butter in the fridge and it never goes hard!!! Let me know if you want accurate quantities and I’ll dig out the measurements for you.
Google knows everything, yes! He’s my friend too. Haha! But I never tried making butter, just a couple of recipes with his help. I’m sure your baking tasted so good. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
hi Angel,
Thanks for popping by. Oh, Kabuki Brushes? I’ve used one once… at my daughter’s wedding. Absolutely beautiful!