Sunday, 8 January 2006

but·ter

Mmmmmmmm butter.

Butter on freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven. Fresh butter. It is all good!

Butter is good for you. Primarily because it is a natural product free of bad things like trans-fats. I think this article presents it very well.

I remember an advert with a little girl saying to her mother "Mummy how do you make butter?" Her mother replied "From cream". Then the little girl says "Mummy how do you make margarine?" And her mother replies "Ask your father, he's the chemist". Brilliant, I think, summing it up perfectly.

Sometimes when I am in the mood I make butter just to remind myself how easy it is and how nice the end product is. This article from Cooking For Engineers on making butter explains things very well.

This is how I do it :

Whip some cream as you would for whipped cream. Keep going until it turns yellow and a milky liquid is released. This is buttermilk so keep it when you tip it off. Add some fresh cold water and gently wash the butter, squeezing with your hands. Pour off the liquid (discarding this time) and repeat until the liquid is pretty much clear. Washing away the buttermilk will improve the storage time of the butter. Drain the butter from the liquid as best as you can then add some salt to taste if you want salted butter. Spread some on fresh bread, marvelling at the taste, then store the rest in the fridge.

2 comments:

Mary said...

Underrated is all I have to say. Nothing tastes better. Had my first go when I was about 5.. my mother had bought some cream (necessary) for a dessert that evening. I had been read a story about how butter was churned (but shaking the carton seemed just as effective) and I can only imagine her face when she opened it that night. It was very good on my bedtime toast.

Emma said...

I hope she wasn't pouring it straight on the dessert! Good toasted bread and butter - mmmmmmmmmm.