Homemade butter making
Last year while milking our cow I collected some cream off the top of some of the milk with the intention of making some homemade butter . I put it into containers and into the freezer, waiting until I had enough collected to match a batch. Unfortunately I forgot all about it in the bottom of the deep freezer.A couple of weeks ago I took 4.5lts out and decided to give it a go. I used the Kenwood mixer to beat the cream until it started to separate, I had to divide it into two batches as the mixer bowel can only take 2.5 liters at a time. It takes about 30 minutes of beating to get 2.5 liters of cream to separate.When it was ready, I separated the butter form the buttermilk using a sieve. The buttermilk was kept and put into a milk carton for using later in baking. The butter now needed to be washed to remove all the last bits of buttermilk. Placing the butter in a bowel, I ran the tap over it and mixed it with a spatula over and over again until the water ran clear. This is the most important stage I think because if you don't remove all the buttermilk it will be continually seeping out of the butter.Then baked this milk loaf using some the buttermilk, it got a great rise on it. It also tasted amazing still warm with homemade butter and strawberry jam.And here is the finished product, not bad from 4.5 liters of cream. After it had been washed I added some sea salt to flavor it before wrapping them up. All the wrapped ones are in the freezer and can be taken out as needed. It appears to store quite well in the freezer without any change to texture or taste.