Butter

My mother in law mentioned to me last time she visited that many years ago she used to make fantastic butter in her Kitchen aid mixer with cream from her neighbor’s cow.  Once she said that I recalled the time I tried to whip cream in my blender and I let it go too long and it clumped up.  Aha moment- I had inadvertently made butter!

Ingredients:

1 cup organic whipping cream ($2.35)

Pinch of salt (optional)(less than $.01)

Using the paddle attachment, whip the cream, scraping the sides of the bowl periodically.  Continue whipping till it clumps and separates.  Add a little salt and beat it a little longer if you’d like. 

Scrape the sides of the bowl, and squeeze all the solids together into a big blob.  Strain the remaining liquid through a mesh strainer, putting the remaining solids with the rest. 

Separated cream

Butter and buttermilk

You have now made two products- Butter, and Buttermilk.  This buttermilk doesn’t have the distinctive sour smell because it hasn’t fermented like commercial buttermilk.  I didn’t know if it would taste any good in a recipe, so I decided to make some biscuits with both products using the recipe from How To Cook Everything.  Ooooh goodness.  They looked like biscuits, they tasted like straight up rich buttery deliciousness! 

Best Biscuits EVER, look how yellow they are!

Try It:

$2.35 for ½ cup organic butter and ½ cup organic buttermilk

Buy It:

$4.99 for 2 cups organic butter, or $1.25 per ½ cup, and $.79 for 2 cups non organic buttermilk, or $.19 per ½ cup, coming to $1.44 together.

Verdict:

Buy It.  It wasn’t a hard process, but it wasn’t any cheaper.  I also rarely use buttermilk so that wasn’t a great bonus.  The two products together made the best biscuits of my life,though!  I may Try It again if a special biscuit need arises.