Making Butter

We had a go at making butter the other day.  There were several cartons of good quality cream reduced to clear at the supermarket, so we took the opportunity and bought all six of them!  We found a good recipe to follow in this book.

Making butter was easier than I initially thought.  Just pour in the cream and let the mixer do the rest!  

It takes a while for the cream to separate...........

Then as soon as the buttermilk and butter separate, put the butter into a sieve lined with muslin to drain a little more squeezing the buttermilk out by hand.

Then back into the mixer for another brief stint of whipping to get the last of the buttermilk out

Back into the sieve lined with fresh muslin for the final drain (see all the buttermilk in the jug!)

However, it was a little fiddly when it came time to shape the butter with the butter pats (these were my grandma's I think).  There is definitely an art to it.

and voila, homemade butter! 

We made seven 220gram parcels all together

We have frozen most of the parcels as the recipe suggests that homemade butter doesn't last as long as the shop bought stuff.  The buttermilk made lovely pancake batter too.
Our butter was lovely spread on homemade bread with lunch.  We will certainly make this again!