All About Butter

Look in your fridge.  I bet there are a few things in there you've become so accustomed to buying, you'd never think to reassess.  Today, even our most basic products are loaded up with crap that no one can pronounce.  Tapioca Maltodextrin?  Seriously, what is that and why is it in my butter?!  Did you know there is only one ingredient necessary to make butter?  Milk- all you need is milk.  It's crazy and incredibly unnecessary to pack such a basic product with so much garbage.


So, I naturally decided to solve this problem by making my own batch.  Once I discovered how EASY it was, I couldn't resist!  Plus, I have the ability to choose the quality of milk I want to use.  I've very picky about my dairy.  I like to pick local with ethical standards.  The majority of dairy farms are linked to the veal industry.  To keep the cows lactating, they need to breed.  So what to do with the calves?  They're shipped off to veal farms where they're abused and killed terribly.  It was such an awful shock, I went vegan for a period of time.  Then I considered the possibility of farms who have a love of both animals and dairy, like me.  They do exist.  Some farms care for their calves properly, don't shoot them up with drugs and feed them properly.  Did you know that you can determine the cow's diet based on the color of the butter?  Yellow is grass fed; white is corn or meat fed.


So homemade butter it is.  This way I know the quality if my dairy and it tastes INCREDIBLE!  The process takes no more than 10 minutes.  You can either use fresh heavy cream for sweet cream butter or soured heavy cream for sour cream butter.  I think I prefer soured, myself.  Also, zest it up with herbs and spices: sea salt, pepper, rosemary, chives, thyme... whatever!  I can't emphasize how good it tastes.  I always get rave reviews and it's truly beyond simple.

THE STUFF
heavy cream
spices and herbs, as desired
cheesecloth or butter muslin
jar with a secure top

THE PREP


If you're using sour cream, allow for it to sit on the counter overnight to spoil.

Pour cream into the jar and shake using slow, controlled, strong strokes.  The motion should resemble you attempting to toss the jar to the floor, as if to shatter it.  But don't drop it because that's not really productive.  Just keep going for 5-8 minutes.  Just when the contents appear to not be moving with the motion of your shaking, keep going.  The mixture will then separate. Give a few last shakes to really bind the butter.  Drain the excess liquid from the jar and reserve- it's buttermilk and you can use it for pancakes!  Then add a half cup of cold water into the jar, shake 3 times and drain.

Next, spoon butter into the cheese/butter cloth and press out the excess buttermilk.  I then sprinkle the seasoning right on top while in the cloth, stir it up and just spoon into tupperware.  If you want to be fancy, you can also spoon the butter onto wax paper, roll it up into a log like a burrito, secure with tape and allow it to harden in the fridge.  Whatever your preference, it doesn't matter- the end result is an amazing treat to top on pretty much everything.  It will also add so much more flavor to your baking!

As for seasoning, I just like sea salt and chives.  Rosemary, salt, thyme, and chives with a zest of lemon rind is also delish.  Play around and have fun.