Butter!

Has anyone made their own butter by whipping the shit out of cream? If so, do you add salt or anything else? I want some for Thanksgiving but just enough to slather on a dozen biscuits or so. Or is there a place to buy a nice, tasty butter around here in very small amounts, like 1/2 pound or less?

Most, but not all, of the manure will have been filtered out of the cream by the time you get it.

I suspect store bought cream will have stabilizers that will hinder the butter making process. The easy way would be to go to a fancy market or Polish market and buy some european butter.

Marketplace on Oakton has a few of specialty butters by the 1/2 pound, they also seem to have those little lamb-shaped butters that are probably 1/4 lb year-round. I've accidentally made butter by trying to whip room-temperature cream; it didn't take much - here's a recipe. You do need to drain it and salt it and in the end it probably isn't worth it.

teatpuller wrote:Most, but not all, of the manure will have been filtered out of the cream by the time you get it.

That literally made me sneeze my water out of my nose. Hats off to you.

We've made buttter when we have more cream than is needed for a recipe. You get better results if you use cream which has not had ultrapasteurization, which forces the fat globules to be eensy-beensy, and generally very hard to get out of suspension, which is what buttermaking is: You're getting all those fat globules to stick together instead of floating around the whey.

Just keep whipping the cream until the liquid separates. Generally, some hand-kneading is necessary to squeeze the water out of bubbles in the butter.

Salt is entirely optional -- I prefer to salt the bread I've spread the butter on -- use less overall, with more impact.

Or make Hotel Butter with a little lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper and finely minced parsley and drop a dollop on top of a steak.

Strack and Van Til has Dean's Heavy Whipping Cream, no stabilizers, no ultrapast. no nothing. Just cream! So while I do not plan to use it for butter, one could.

Usually it's only around the holidays that non-ultrapasteurized, non-stabilized heavy cream is readily available. There's just not enough demand for it at other times of the year, and the ultrapasteurized stuff lasts a lot longer on grocers' shelves.

trader joe's carries a number of fancy butters, many of which are quite good.

My favorite butter was a cultured one I found at Fox & Obel, I think it's called Mendon Creamery or something-- I'm never quite sure on the name. What I liked was that it tasted like the Vermont one, but came in an actual tub, not some ratty paper.

Garofalo, whose tubs of not very exciting buffalo mozz were at Costco a couple of years ago, has a cultured butter that's pretty good that Whole Foods carries now. At least their ratty paper is very nice, thick ratty paper.

Searching for Mendon Creamery I found this butter tasteoff.

One of my favorite bloggers blogged about making butter in the carton! I thought it was so cool!

Pie Lady wrote:Has anyone made their own butter by whipping the shit out of cream? If so, do you add salt or anything else? I want some for Thanksgiving but just enough to slather on a dozen biscuits or so. Or is there a place to buy a nice, tasty butter around here in very small amounts, like 1/2 pound or less?

Put the cream in the blender and forget about it. You'll get butter eventually.

CrazyC wrote:One of my favorite bloggers blogged about making butter in the carton! I thought it was so cool!

We did this in grammar school. I thought everyone did. Teacher brought in a little cream container, kid in the first row, first seat would shake it for a minute, pass it back, the next kid would shake it, pass, etc., until the carton snaked all across the room. By the time the last person had it (we had about 30 kids in our class), the teacher would break out the crackers and we'd all have a little taste of our homemade butter.

Woodman's has a fine selection of all things dairy. You should be able to find the non-ultrapasteurized, non-stabilized stuff on the shelves. We also have a great selection of butters (European and Wisconsin) including butter molded into the shape of turkeys.

Binko wrote:

CrazyC wrote:One of my favorite bloggers blogged about making butter in the carton! I thought it was so cool!

We did this in grammar school. I thought everyone did.

This, along with sweeping the barn and running wheelbarrow relays, is part of the standard field-trip schtick at Wagner Farm.

It should be noted that there's a distinct difference between cultured butter and non-cultured butter: I remember running out to Whole Paycheck after reading an article in one of the Epicurious magazines (can't find it, don't remember which one) that described the butter and the process - cultured butter is made from cream with yogurt cultures in it; the acidophilous bacteria give it an extra dimension of nuttiness. You won't get this at home from whipping cream, and I've had some that don't seem different than regular butter, but in the good ones the flavor really stands out. It's usually available in 1/2 lb.

There's also Plugra, which is available in smaller amounts because it has a lower water, so it's fattier: it's also delicious. Surprisingly, I've found Plugra at the Jewel and Dominick's - I'd intended to try it on a piecrust, but we wound up eating the whole 1/2 lb spread on bread (fortunately not all at once.)

Hi all,

Since I started baking bread a couple of times a week, I figured it would be a great opportunity to start trying different butters. I've hit on a pretty good number of different butters such as Plugra, Clover, Lurpak, Kerry, Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter just to name a few.

The winner so far? It's so hard to say. They all really have their own characteristics that make their taste unique from each other. Well, with the exception of the Land 'O lakes and regular generic brands which were a few notches down on the flavor and texture categories.

I've also found some good sales and prices too. I do like the nuances between brands, but I don't think I'll be using these butters in everyday cooking. Instead I use them like finishing salt. So I suppose I would use these better butters as a finishing butter.

dan

MHays,

I believe you are referring to an issue of Saveur.

Regards,

gonefishin wrote:I've hit on a pretty good number of different butters such as Plugra, Clover, Lurpak, Kerry, Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter just to name a few. dan

Where do you do your shopping?

Woodman's, Wagner Farm...anyone else know some good dairies to visit? I think I might arrange a field trip.

Pretty sure all those butters are available at Whole Foods. I've seen most of them except the Parmagiano one at other markets as well, like Garden Fresh and Sunset Foods.

Butter in a baby food jar is a staple hands-on activity in many history museums. Plus it gives your upper arms a work out.

This couldn't be much simpler and I know people who do this nearly daily to have fresh butter at dinner.

Keep heavy (not ultra-pasturized) cream on the counter for a day or so. At the very least, have it at room temperature. If it sits out a little, deeper flavors develop.

Fill a small jar 1/4 full or less. The cream needs headroom to crash against the sides so the fats glob together.

Shake like mad. Butter forms amazingly fast.

Shake some more. When the glob in the middle looks pale yellow and the buttermilk looks thin, pour through a sieve. Capture the buttermilk for later and place the butter in a bowl with some ice. Press with the back of a wooden spoon or butter paddle to force out the rest of the buttermilk. Salt if you like.

Ta da. Butter.

Mhays wrote:
There's also Plugra, which is available in smaller amounts because it has a lower water, so it's fattier: it's also delicious. Surprisingly, I've found Plugra at the Jewel and Dominick's - I'd intended to try it on a piecrust, but we wound up eating the whole 1/2 lb spread on bread (fortunately not all at once.)

I buy Plugra at the European Imports outlet sales. I think it's been $2.50 for the pound package and $1.00/lb for 5-6 pound blocks.

Pie Lady wrote:

gonefishin wrote:I've hit on a pretty good number of different butters such as Plugra, Clover, Lurpak, Kerry, Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter just to name a few. dan

Where do you do your shopping?

Woodman's, Wagner Farm...anyone else know some good dairies to visit? I think I might arrange a field trip.

Most times I'll go to Caputo's, Whole Foods for some items, H-Mart and Strack. I've noticed that the butter selection tends to change at all the stores from time to time, as does price. Sometimes they'll carry either the 1lb blocks instead of sticks which are usually cheaper. Of the stores mentioned earlier Whole Foods probably has the best rotating selection.


dan

HI,

According to Food in jars, if you made your own creme fraiche, you are now 15 minutes away from making cultured butter.

Regards,

Hi- I was at Dominick's tonight, and I noticed that they have a new to the Chicago area brand of butter called Challenge. The Challenge butter company has been in business for 100 years on the West coast, and they are the largest selling butter manufacturer in the West. They just recently expanded their market to the midwest, and both Dominick's and Walmart carry their butter in the Chicago area. Dominick's has a one pound package of Challenge butter at the introductory price of $2.99, and I found a 75 cent coupon for it in one of the blinkie machines located in front of the display.

Has anybody tried this butter before? They are based in California. $2.24 for butter is a pretty good deal. Hope this helps, Nancy

Hi- Jewel has Kerry Hold butter on sale B1G1F this week. You get 2 8 oz. packages for $5.99. Hope this helps, Nancy

Whoo hoo! I was thinking of making shortbread for Mr. Pie's St. Pat's Thing at his work, and now it can be more authentic.

Whoo hoo! I was thinking of making shortbread for Mr. Pie's St. Pat's Thing at his work, and now it can be more authentic.

You'd need Scottish butter for that, I'm afraid.

I'm sure the Irish dig shortbread.