Food Werx, Vol 2 - butter

So, I have been reading a great deal on nutrition, exercise, endocrinology, plate tectonics, physiology, etc, over the past year or so...

As evidenced by Vol 1, I am trying to make some things at home. We are digging around the back yard, so we can have a good selection of veggies from now on. We're going to plant peppers, zucchini, asparagus, basically, anything that tastes good.

But I am also having fun at home making things from scratch.

Nicole and I both love to cook, so why not?

There will be a blog post coming soon about the health value in milk, both the pros and cons. But in the meantime, we have a good supplier nearby of raw milk, and it is utterly delicious! (like I could resist that!) Nicole thought it tasted a little strange, but it is milk even more the way that I remember it.

So, with that, I decided to have some fun, hence this post. :)

So, I tried my hand at making butter. It is ridiculously easy. I skimmed the heavy cream off the top of our milk (Who here is old enough to remember milk being delivered in bottles to your house, raise your hands!)

Here is a good picture of the milk separated.

This is the way to actually make SKIM milk. It was called that because all the milk fat was 'skimmed' off of the top of the milk once the cream had settled to the top. It is really 'skimmed milk.'

an aside--A problem that I will discuss in my post on milk, is that modern skim milk is mostly made from powdered milk, especially with the big manufacturers. Powdered milk has oxidized cholesterol in it, and oxidization is something we really need to prevent in our bodies.

I set it aside so it could get closer to room temperature; some websites say to do that, others say to simply start with cold cream, you just need to agitate it longer.

So I poured the top cream into a jar with a lid, and then started shaking it. Pretty vigorously, too, at least at the start.

After about 8-10 minutes, I had non-sweetened whipped cream. I could feel the difference in the jar in the way it was no longer sloshing about. I continued shaking the jar, occasionally hitting it against my opposite hand, to loosen the more solider mass inside.

After another 10 minutes or so of this, I had a ball forming inside, and I could feel in the shaking that the liquid had separated, so now I just needed to finish it off, almost there.

20 minutes from when I started, I had it. Butter. Sweet cream butter. The leftover milk is buttermilk, perfect for pancakes, etc... mmmmmm.....

Is it better? It is very light and smooth, and it has all the milk fat that it should. We'll see how it goes.

The real judges will be Thomas and Nicole. It was quick and simple. There is no real reason to do it yourself, except just simply to do it yourself.

Enjoy!!