Mar 14 2008
Its Like Butta**
Growing up my parents didn’t often keep butter around the house, we were more olive oil people. On occasion we would eat it with artichokes or pancakes, but we weren’t big into buttering our bread and it was sacrilege to put butter on grandma’s rolls. A few years ago, as Phil and I sat down to our first Parisian hotel breakfast when our server brought out the normal assortment or preserves and butter. Normally I don’t touch the stuff, but I thought; when in Rome . . . or Paris in our case, and proceeded to slather my baguette with the rich, creamy substance.
I was hooked. Actually, I developed sort of a ‘problem’ that eventually led to a wider notch on my belt before I took the matter in hand, limiting my buttery baguettes to my birthday and when we have guests. It is a bit sad, because a guilty pleasure of this magnitude should be savored . . . alone. As it happens we have house guests in the form of my in-laws this weekend. Naturally I have decided to make the most of my buttery indulgence by making my own butter*.
The process is simple (if you have a good mixer), and completely fascinating. Just toss heavy cream in a mixer, whip the daylights out of it until it separates, wash with icy water, salt and shape. I used my favorite coarse fleur de sel from Brittany in my butter. The coarse granules add little salty surprises which is lovely on bread and heaven on a radish. Also I used a good local organic cream with a high fat content which makes all the difference. While you can use any heavy cream, I recommend going whole hog to make this homemade butter a special treat.
Butter
1 pint heavy cream (at room temp)
1/2 tsp coarse fleur de sel
A glass of icy water
ice pack (optional, but helpful)
Place the cream into the mixer and blend at high speed using a whisk attachment. The cream will need to mix for about 15 minutes or so. Be sure to stop periodically to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Eventually little butter globules begin to separate from the buttermilk. At this point, allow it to go a little longer until the butter is almost floating in the buttermilk.
At this point, drain the butter and place it back in the bowl and add about a 1/2 a cup of the icy water and mix at a medium speed. This washes the remaining buttermilk out of the butter. You may have to drain and repeat this step a few times until the water is clear.
Drain the butter through a sieve and place it back into the mixing bowl. If the room is warm I like to use an ice pack around the bowl to keep the butter from softening. It may be overly cautious, but I don’t want the butter melting on me. Add the salt and blend on low until just incorporated. Place the butter in a mold or butter bell and refrigerate.
* I have wanted to make butter for a very long time; I don’t know why it took me so long. When I was six, my parents took me to Pioneer Farms where they had a hands on demonstration of pioneer butter making techniques. Sadly, it was a little more hands on for some than others, and I was edged out by a jar hog with a bowl haircut and Toughskins.
** After I finished writing this post, I wandered over to Chocolate and Zucchini to find that making ones own butter is apparently all the rage. Clotilde wrote a fantastic article on it for Saveur that you should really check out. I will be.
As a child it was my chore to make the butter on the farm. By hand with a wooden spoon, no beaters in those days. The most fun was shaping it into curls with the wooden paddles.
Ah, Erin, you bring me back to my younger days when mama would whip us for tasting the butter with our grubby little fingers before we were finished. It was a gentle whipping, so it did nothing to prevent us from doing it over and over again. How she knew, I never found out. Perhaps it was the greasy fingerprints we left all over the house, who can say. At any rate, making one’s own butter is the perfect way to really enjoy the loveliness of cream. And I’m much to old to be whipped these days.
Thank you for writing about this!
Francesca
Oh my gosh…looks like…heaven.
Barbara, I wasn’t lucky enough to have any chores as tasty as that!
Francesca, I am so glad you enjoyed reading this. It sounds like you have some very fond memories.
Kim, It is heaven!
… and if there is any left over then you can do like Kramer and slather it on your skin and get a nice tan from the roof of your building, or better yet, have a butter shave…
Ah. . . Kramer. I never used butter, but my friend Marisa and I used olive oil in junior high. She has this lovely olive skin and tanned nicely, I have pasty Celtic skin and looked a bit more like Kramer after the butter tan.