Making fresh butter at home

[Nancy Bunker]

So you plan to spend the afternoon at the local farmers's market. Are you interested in trying something new?

Buy some fresh heavy cream from the local dairy farmer. Pasteurized cream is OK. Take it home and chill it well.

Put the heavy cream in the kitchenaid mixer bowl and turn the mixer on to medium speed. I put some freeezer blocks near the bowl to keep it cool while mixing (about 1/2 hour or so) Stay in the room while the cream mixes and whips up. It will pass through stages including whipped cream. After the whipped cream stage, the cream starts to glob up into bits of butter. Turn the mixer down to low (to prevent buttermilk from splattering all over your kitchen -been there,done that) Watch the butter separate from the buttermilk and when the butter is all in a glob, pour off the buttermilk. Use the buttermilk for baking or feed some to the dog. Rinse the butter with some water and squish water through it to wash out traces of buttermilk. pour off all of the water. Butter may be frozen or eaten fresh. A small amount of salt may be added to taste. Spread some butter on warm honey wheat bread, just out of the oven. Spread a little butter on your just picked and steamed garden vegetables.

If there is interest, maybe I'll post my favorite honey wheat bread and blueberry jam recipes!

[Suz Lipman]

Hi Nancy! I love making fresh butter! This is an easy and wonderful project for kids. I love connecting children to nature through gardening, harvest and cooking activities. They're always fun and you usually have wonderful products at the end. I'd love to see bread and jam recipes! I'm always looking for more. (My daughter started making jam with me when she was 3 and ended up entering her jams in county fairs. We still like to pick local berries and make jam and other desserts.) Thanks for the inspiration and easy instructions.