Well, Summer is underway and we are having a great time doing the different things on our Summer list. Since the last few days we have been busy going & doing, today's activity of making homemade butter was perfect. We could sit on the back porch, talk, & relax while completing our butter making!
Let me just say, making homemade butter is one of the easiest and most rewarding projects ever! Keep in mind that I have lots of boys and boys LOVE to eat, so butter was something they would be interested in since making butter = making food to put the butter on!
We started out with 3 simple things: a recycled applesauce jar w/ lid, a dishtowel, and heavy cream (2 1/2 cups). We poured the heavy cream into the jar a few hours before we were actually going to make it, so that the cream would be at room temp and make butter more quickly. When we were ready, we all went to the back porch so we could sit outdoors and shake, shake, shake! And that is what we did! Basically, we sat in a circle and passed the jar each time one of us got tired. Of course, being boys, they were competitive, which in this case was a good thing! So they tried to out-do each other and shake longer than they would have normally.
Initially the butter seemed to be turning into whipped cream, but after about 10 minutes, we began to see that clumps were forming and we were pleased with that. So we kept shaking and chatting! After 20-25 minutes the butter was completely whipped and ready to transfer to another container to refrigerate.
I was expecting to have to drain off excess liquid (buttermilk), but we must have whipped it more than necessary because there wasn't any at all! Not a drop! So, instead, we salted it a little, stirred it, tasted it, of course, and then put it in the refrigerator. Easy & Super delicious!
If you try this yourself, you may have to drain off the buttermilk. If so, all you do is tilt the bowl with the large clump of butter, drain the milk off, and then use a rubber spatula to work the butter into a mound, draining off more liquid if necessary. The buttermilk can be used in any way that you normally use buttermilk (biscuits, muffins, etc...)and then you can refrigerate the butter or eat it right away! Some people rinse their butter to get all milk off for fear of spoiling, but if you plan to use it pretty soon, don't worry with that!
Overall, I would say the butter-making was a huge success and a great lesson for my children (and me!) about where butter comes from, the work it takes to make it, and the truth that all things homemade are SO much better than store bought! I hope that you will make butter with your family soon!
