Saturday 24 September 2011

Butter!

Whilst butter is low GI by definition (ie it's completely fat with no carbohydrates), it doesn't quite fit into the ethos of my low GI blog. So I shall post about my excursions into butter making here.

I was lucky enough to receive a Thermomix for my birthday a few months ago. It was a big surprise for me, although we had casually chatted about replacing my ageing, and lets face it not-quite-up-to-it-anymore blender, but hadn't got around to it.

We've been using for all sorts of things- sorbet, custard, soup, risotto. But one of the things that made my heart race when I first looked through the book was the chance to make home made butter. It seems so down on the farm, and yet it's done in a completely modern, high-tech way.

It's a really cool, simple process. You pour cream in, and whizz it around really fast. Within a minute or so it looks like this:


Then the buttermilk separates out



You add water and "wash" it for a few seconds


Re-blitz (at which you can add salt if you like) and you have home made butter! All in under 5 minutes.


Sometimes Mr Wicker makes homemade bread

And we can have our homemade butter on our homemade bread




It's almost like we're Amish or something.


This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

16 comments:

TheBookGirl said...

When I think of making butter, all I can conjure up is images of churns, lol. Who knew it could be this easy?

Beth F said...

We used to make butter as kids. My mom would put the cream in a jar with a tightly fitting lid and we would take turns shaking the jar vigorously until we got butter. My brothers and I loved to do this.

Carol said...

We made butter as kids, too! So good, too. That is the best fresh baked bread, with home made butter.

Nan said...

Because we buy whole raw milk, we used to make our own butter sometimes using the blender. Now we buy Kate's:

http://www.kateshomemadebutter.com/

It's as good and real as can be.

JoAnn said...

There's better than homemade bread... except homemade bread with homemade butter!!

sawcat said...

You had me at custard. I never knew it was that easy to make butter

Belle Wong said...

Wow. I want a Thermomix! I LOVE butter, and your pictures make it look so easy to make your own. The homemade bread looks good, too :)

Joy said...

I had no idea that you could make butter at home that quickly. Very cool!
Joy's Book Blog

Marg said...

I made butter at home by mistake one time using a hand held blender. Unfortunately we had added sugar to sweeten it so it was a very sweet butter!

Bet your homemade butter tastes absolutely fabulous!

Margot said...

I was going to tell you about making butter in a jar as a child but Candace did a good job of that already. There is nothing like real homemade butter with real homemade bread. The only improvement might be if you had some homemade jam.

bermudaonion said...

Oh, I bet that butter tastes extra special!

Genie -- Paris and Beyond said...

You made my mouth water and then made me laugh with your last comment.

The butter-making could include some honey or herbs for special-flavored butters...

Bises,
Genie

Uniflame said...

I don't really like butter at all. But it is interesting to see how easy it is to make :)

Here is my weekend cooking post: http://shelikesbento.blogspot.com/2011/09/weekend-cooking-herbal-cheese-pancakes.html

Heather said...

every so often we still make butter using a jar. Love the taste of it.

Kath Lockett said...

Oooh, delicious!

I remember making 'butter' in primary school by putting a heap of cream into a jam jar and shaking it for what seems like years. Looking back on it now, I can see that it helped wear us kids out for the teacher :)

Little Nell said...

Oh dear - there goes my diet. My strong resolve not to eat either bread OR butter has gone :( Really interesting post.