Butter! Part One

Well, you have to have something to put on the bread, don't you?

I've taught a butter class as several SCA events this season, and this weekend I taught it to a bunch of Cub Scouts.  They were a great bunch of kids and I enjoyed myself much more than I thought I would.  So I figured it was time to post about it.

My class handout for the Making Butter class is here:  Making butter

There are several ways to make butter.  One that I've never had success with is to put cream in a mason jar, with or without several marbles in the jar, and shake it.

The next is the time honored butter butter churn.

This is my churn:

This was at a cheese/butter class I taught in the spring at Cooking Schola in Mass.

The name made this the churn for me!

We start with a quart of supermarket heavy cream.  Unlike cheesemaking, you can make butter with any pasteurized dairy, including ultrapasterurized.

The dasher is a length of dowel with two short pieces of wood attached at one end.

On Dasher...

You (or your audience) then move the dasher up and down fairly quickly, twisting slightly on the downstroke.  After a suprisingly short amount of time, the sound changes and starts to sound like splashing, which means it's working.  Another minute or two to get everything firmed up, and it's about a pound of fresh delicious butter!

And step one is complete.  

Next post:  Finishing the butter...