The Sweetest Cream I've Ever Tasted!

So, check it out- I made by butter! By hand! In less than a half an hour!!! I was recently inspired by a post on Crunchy Chicken Cooks in which she described how she made butter in a mason jar out of some left over cream she had. I have been wanting to make butter myself for a while now, but having all of the instructions plainly in front of me was just the kick I needed to actually try it!

I picked up some organic heavy whipping cream from the grocery store, making note of just how much cheaper the organic cream is than the organic butter. That night during American Idol I went town. Granted, my husband had his doubts! He kept saying, "Don't you need a mixer to do that? Or a butter churn? I don't think that is going to work!"

To which I replied, "Well, I did it in kindergarten for our Thanksgiving Celebration- it worked then!"

Still skeptical, he said, "That was a long time ago!"

But full of assurance I declared, "I doubt that the ability for cream to turn into butter has changed much since then! So ha!" And with that, I got busy!

Really, it went much more quickly than I anticipated. After a fair amount of shaking the cream went from runny, to thick, to apparently immovable (at that point it was quite a work out to shake- I should extend my thanks here to my ever helpful little assistant!!)! But then, all of the sudden, the cream started separating from the walls of the jar and you could plainly see a yellow ball emerging! It was working! Wahoo! It was actually very fun to watch it transform! I kept on shaking as the butter milk began to seep out and before I knew it, it was done! I dumped the lump into a bowl and rinsed out the remaining whey (buttermilk) just as the Crunchy Chicken Cooks post had instructed, added a pinch of kosher salt and voila'! Butter! Beautiful, rich, creamy, homemade butter!

I do believe I will make a habitat out of this and possibly even look into buying dairy straight from a local farm- how yummy would that be?!! I will keep you posted on any new dairy developments- of that you can be sure!