Butter Making

[Shirl]

Hi Shirl,

Followed your recipe for making butter in a Kenwood using the k beater, excellent result tastes lovely. I used Asda�s double cream to start me off. I�ll be on the look out for reduced creams from now on.

Brill, glad it worked out for you. The trick now is finding enough reduced cream (single won't work) so you can store it and have supplies for the whole year. I seem to get loads at Christmas time and then again Wimbledon week, with just a couple of pots here and there the rest of the time.

I've not butter or marg for years and its soooo much nicer when its homemade!
PS thank you for taking the time to look at my blog

[Mike D]

I'm pleased to see others having a go at butter. My friends think I'm mad - first it was bread, then butter, then sausages, now cheese - and probably this weekend I'll get the kit to start doing beer. (I need to put my cellar to full use)

I just do mine in a food processor (with lid) so it doesn't cover the kitchen too much. I can never get any cream with a BBD near to expiry though. So I end up getting 600ml cartons of dbl cream from Tesco for �1.67 and I get around 12oz of butter from this. A block of Country Life unsalted is �1.07 for 8oz. So it is not cheaper, but tastes so much better.

Once I have washed it out, I place it on a sloping chopping board and give it a knead with a couple of wooden spatulas (I keeping looking for butter pats but I'm not finding anything) to knock it into shape. At this point I would add herbs or garlic, then I wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge. It does taste so much better than manufactured stuff.

There is a farmer down the road who does milk with a health warning (unpasteurised) & I was thinking of approaching him for cream - I do give him a hand at haymaking so I'm sure he could help me out. Anybody done butter with unpasteurised milk !

I was looking for a use for the buttermilk as I just pour it away or give it to the cats, and did post a question in the cheesemaking section about this, so I was pleased to read the suggestions above.

Mike.

[Shirl]

Mike if you have a Makro nearby they sell the cream in four pint cartons and I often find them reduced as they are near their sell by date.

The buttermilk is a real treat to cook with. Sauces are soooo creamy! Yoghurt making is a great success, I find it sets much nicer than with UHT.

Wait until you buy a flour mill and start grinding your own flour... my friends just accept i'm weird!

[Mike D]

Hi Shirl,

Funny you should mention flour grinding, as I was looking at an attachment for a Kenwood Chef that is a flour mill. My mum has a Kenwood Chef with loads of attachments that she hasn't used in years.

Makro is about 45mins away for me, but Costco is much closer so I'll pop in the next time I'm passing and check out the cream.

It is great that there is a forum like this for us "weirdo's" - those "weirdo's" who don't eat ready meals and can also cook
I'm quite sure Heston Blumenthal, Gordon "F*****g" Ramsay, Hugh Fearlessy-Eatsitall et al would be proud of our efforts, although it would be interesting to hear what they think of the lengths we go to.

[Shirl]

I've seen those kenwood chef milling attachments but have no experience of them. Its certainly a cheaper option than shelling out hundreds for something you may not get on with.

Mine has two small granite grinders in and does mill the flour quite fine. I keep the bran in with it but if I wanted a lighter loaf I just sieve off some of the larger pieces of bran.

Anyway I better shut up as I'm going off topic.... again!

I'm proud of being 'weird' and I think my friend are quite envious actually when they hear of my latest concoctions whilst they tuck into their McDonalds!

[Mike D]

We are just misunderstood!

[johnfb]

Have a look at this guys

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=4034

[Mike D]

Thanks for the link John, I see you are having to put up with your family thinking there is something strange going on. My O/H doesn't mind a bit, as she gets some great food, but I'm trying to rationalise it I suppose. I have had a new delivery of casings today, and got excited about it and I'm awaiting some bacon cure coming too....and I'm excited about that as well. I am unable to explain to others, (even though most people on this forum understand), what there is to look forward to in spending a saturday morning mincing pork, adding herbs, spices etc and making a large pile of great tasting food. Is it the survivalist coming out, in the event of all sausage makers having a national strike..."Strike? I'm OK pal, I do my own !". Could it be the smug feeling when others ask which butcher you got them from? But it is the same with everything else, bread, cheese, butter, beer...or is it trying to get back to a simpler age when most foods were seasonal (not strawberries in December) and home produced. You could argue that it is not simpler by any means, neither is it cheaper when you consider the cost of the kit...maybe with the exception of the beer....so why do we do it?

Only food with me though, I would not make my own clothes.....

[wheels]

Mike

I do it 'cos I can!

[dimmell123]

Hi everyone. Been watching this thread (along with the breakmaking one which was my first interest until I found this) and having taken delivery of my Kenwood from eBay this morning I couldn't wait to get started and am astonished at the result. Firstly I paid a visit to Mr Morrison yesterday evening and spotted two 600ml cartons of double cream 24 hours from their sell by date - reduced to �1 for the two. I think some-one had made a mistake but I grabbed them and ran ( a lady was hovering and wondering but sorry, love, you were just too late on that occasion). Now the normal price there is �1.50 for 600ml. I say that because it will be interesting in a moment.
I left my cream out of the fridge for about 2 hours so it was well up to room temp and amazingly I found the butter forming within 3 minutes but I just kept it going until it had turned yellowish. I poured the buttermilk off (surprising little really) and just rinsed it in the bowl until the water ran clear and then transferred it on to a chopping board and flattened it and patted it into shape with a plastic spatula repeatedly (I have won some butter pats on eBay but they haven't arrived yet) - and just kept doing that until the texture was well bonded and smooth and no whey was coming out. Put it into a plastic box and into the fridge. Have just been to taste it and sorry to say it is absolutely glorious (I prefer unsalted but I guess it would be too bland for some). The texture is superb. Now this is the thing I find most curious: 600ml has yielded 14ozs (sorry about mixng the imp/metric but I'm an old git). That seems to me to be rather a lot. But it also means at full price for the cream (�1.50) the butter is going to be a bit over half price. I can't understand it. I'm going to freeze it and do another lot tomorrow.
I guess I ought to ask the question do you think I've got it right and should I trust my tastebuds?
David

[Mike D]

Hi David, I'm pleased you enjoyed the thread. �1 for two - you jammy bugger!! I was in Morrisons today and paid �1.50 each for 3 cartons, but I did get 18 pints of milk for about fiver, there was discount on the 6 pint bottles....don't know if you are at the sausage stage, but they are also doing a special on pork, so I got a load of belly & shoulder and did some more sausages this evening, and a great piece of back which is now in the fridge dry curing...(my electric slicer should arrive in a couple of days ) - sorry, going off topic!

You do exactly the same an I do, and using the same cream. I just don't buy supermarket butter now. It is too easy to do, and the taste is a world apart. I used to but Country Life unsalted about �1.07 for 8oz (13.3p/oz) and I'm getting 12oz for �1.50 (12.5p/oz) for my homemade so it is marginally cheaper.

If your tastebuds like it, then thats all that matter ! Try adding herbs from the garden!


Cheers,


Mike.

[Shirl]

There's been a few times when I've run out of butter and I've gone without rather than go back to plastic tasting supermarket stuff!

I don't bother with the butter pats anymore.... I think the excitement wears off after a few years. I just wash it, squeeze it in some kitchen roll and freeze in the round shape it ends up in.

[dimmell123]

Hi again. Here's a little conundrum for the experts. Today I have been trying my second lot of cream (see posting above) and so far it is a total failure. For the first time in my entire life I have come across double cream which will not over-whip! The due date is today and I did what I did last time, taking it out of the fridge to warm up. Started off as before and have tried everything I can think of to try to make it split and it won't. After over an hour of beating in the Kenwood it remains excellently whipped double cream (even had a taste and it is good for strawberries!!!). I even took the speed up to maximum trying to beat it into submission and then gave up on the K beater and tried the balloon whisk. I thought then it might be turning so changed back to K beater so there wouldn't be too much air in it to deal with. It still hasn't gone over. The only thing I can think of now is to try a little squirt of lemon juice to see if that will do it but I haven't the courage. It makes me want to go back to Morrisons and challenge them on quality.
Anyone had a similar experience and any idea what to do?
David

[Spuddy]

Sounds like a pastry chef's dream
I don't think acidity will tip it over but you could give it a try, if it doesn't work then add some more lemon juice and some sugar and call it Lemon Syllabub.

[Shirl]

David.

I find sometimes if the house is warm it can 'get stuck' at the whipped stage. This sometimes happens if I have done loads of batches and the machine is warm. I just put the bowl with the cream in back in the fridge for an hour.

Got to be worth a try?

PS its definately fresh double or whipping?