Butter making

I thought I'd share my recipe for making butter  using up cream with you today.
Making butter, in my opinion, is not a financial gain. Butter from my farmer's shop is much cheaper per lb. However, that is not to say that the satisfaction gain, or the gain from achieving butter and buttermilk from your close to date cream isn't worth it.

It really is simple, can be achieved with the simplest of equipment and is a great activity for children.

So, in simplest terms all you need is your double cream, a fully tight sealing jar, a piece of clean muslin or cloth and salt.

The cheat's way is to use your food mixer instead of the jar.

So pour your cream into the jar/food mixer, seal the lid and shake  (turn it on low).

Now, I didn't  say this would be easy and this is a good point for the kids to join in, but shake, and shake, and shake. It will take quite a while. It's faster in the mixer!

Eventually you will see  the cream start to separate, lumps will appear. Don't  stop shaking until you get all the clumps clump as one. This is now the buttermilk and the butter.

I save my buttermilk, it can be used in pancakes or scones.

Take the lump of butter and wrap it in the cloth.  Try not to overhandle, it is butter and you will melt it.

Run it under the cold tap and squeeze.  Or you can do the same in a bowl of water.

What you're  trying to do here is rid the butter of any remaining milk to prevent it going sour.you will need to wash and squeeze it several times, moulding it to open the butter up so it's  all washed.

Then it needs to dry.  You can use  fresh piece of cloth. Again it must be  dry or it will go rancid.

Butter paddles can be used to pat the butter and at the point where it's totally dry, you can add dried herbs or salt to taste.

There are butter moulds, paddles or you can just use flat knives to make you shape. Personally shape doesn't  bother me.

I then wrap mine I  clingfilm and you can eat it within a week or it will freeze for 3 months.

So, crude instructions and no pictures, I'm sorry, but if you were going to  pour that slightly out of date cream out or you have a glut of cream, give it a go.