The City Girl Farmer

Butter ready for the freezer

Some readers have been wondering what I’ve been up to lately.  Well, here you go!  I’ve been making cultured butter and lots of it.  Tiddles gives us about 5 gallons of milk a day and making butter is one way to use it all up.

Cultured butter can be made by adding a store-bought culture to the cream but it can also be made the old-fashioned way of using cream that has been allowed to sit at room temperature for 1-2 days.  The advantage of the store-bought culture is that you control what bacteria is predominant in flavoring the cream.  The advantage to the old-fashioned way is that it’s quick, easy and cheap.  I have been quite pleased with the results of the latter method so that is what I have been using.

Here is how I do it:

• skim cream into a separate bowl and chill
• add cream to food processor, and using the bread dough blade, process until the butter breaks
• line a sieve with cheesecloth or butter muslin and dump the butter and butter milk into the sieve
• allow the buttermilk to drain away from the butter for a few minutes
• wash the butter under cold running water and add salt to taste (if desired)
• form the butter using a mold or by hand and store

That’s it.  Simple as can be and really tasty!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.