Comments on: Boutros boutros, golly!

By: Dana McCauley

Dana McCauley — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:42:31 +0000

Did you salt your homemade butter? I can imagine it being a pretty fun project to make your own butter and add a smoked salt to use on corn on the cob or baked sweet potatoes.

Gawd - I think I better go make dinner! I'm starved.

By: mamster

mamster — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:16:26 +0000

Nicole, Iris was mildly impressed, but today I offered her toast with homemade butter, and she said, “We should go to the store and get some regular butter.”

By: Nicole

Nicole — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:20:29 +0000

I did it as a science experiment with my 5th graders last year. They really enjoyed it - both the process and the flavor.

What did Iris think of it?

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:02:55 +0000

I’ve been told it’s not actually buttermilk unless you’ve allowed the cream to sit out and culture before making the (cultured) butter. There’s a good recipe for cultured butter at The Traveler’s Lunchbox:

http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/2007/6/21/getting-some-culture.html

Try it. It’s easy and delicious, though a bit expensive to make at home. And yes, it does become as hard as frozen butter in the fridge, and because it has no preservatives it will eventually mold. If you don’t use much butter (as I don’t) put some in the freezer when you make it, or your expensive homemade butter will mold before you can use it all.

By: mattwright

mattwright — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:40:58 +0000

completely awesome.

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:53:24 +0000

That is totally funny!

By: Pocky eater

Pocky eater — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:58:31 +0000

did you do that thing that they do in “little house on the prairie” where you press the butter into a mold with a strawberry shape in the top?<

And did you use grated carrot to color the butter? Heather and mamster, if either of you ever molds butter, I want to see pictures! (On behalf of all nitpickers, I'd like to point out that the memorable butter-making scene took place in Little House in the Big Woods, not Little House on the Prairie.)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:00:57 +0000

The buttermilk leftover makes the worlds best biscuits. It’s almost worth making just for the buttermilk.

By: Andrew Feldstein

Andrew Feldstein — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:55:54 +0000

I’ve made butter often. It’s fun, and fabulous. I’ve not yet been able to try it with soured, unpasteurized milk, since that is nearly impossible to get here in Michigan.

To get it to keep better, after the butter separates from the whey you have to mix it with water, and then press the water out (I use a bamboo rice paddle). Do this a couple of times to get all the whey out. It’s a bit of a pain since I think you have to do it by hand (at least I always have—I’ve never experimented with doing it by machine).

And add a pince of salt—no really, even “unsalted” butter has salt in it. Otherwise it tastes, well, a bit flat.

By the way, in this case the food processor works much better than the mixer.

The homemade butter is certainly more expensive than the commercial butter from the market, but it’s oodles fresher, and not more expensive than the expensive butters at the market.

One last thing—the homemade butter is—I believe, I’ve never tested it—much higher in fat than the commercial butter from the market. That’s why, I assume, it gets really rock hard in the fridge—as hard as regular butter gets in the freezer.

By: Susann

Susann — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:24:16 +0000

When I was a camp counselor, the kids poured cream into small jars and then shook the jars until the cream turned into butter. Most kids lost interest after 30 seconds, but the persistent ones made real butter. They didn’t understand, though, why it didn’t taste like their (salted) butter from home.