I can't believe it's not butter - or is it?

I recently went out to Evan's place for a little tuition on keeping a dairy cow. I found him through the Sunday papers. They featured his farm as part of a back to the land type spread. He keeps two lovely Jersey cows on fresh pasture and hand milks them. These cows are living the real deal. They are rotated regularly so that they have fresh green pasture and are 99.99%grass fed, just as nature intended. In case you were wondering what the other 0.01% was, they get a little tasty treat of oats or grain when they come in for milking. They love it!

Jerseys are apparently very sweet tempered cows and are somewhat smaller than other breeds making them perfect for "domestic" use. According to him keeping a dairy cow was very common back in the day and intimidating though I find them, apparently milking the cow was considered kid's work.

I spent a very enjoyable morning with him talking about cow keeping, we milked the cows of course (I even had a go!) and after he had plied me with homemade brie and the best maple vanilla ice cream I have ever tasted, I left with a huge jar of milk and three pints of god's honest rich, decadent jersey cream. (Before leaving I also bagsyd one of the geese and a promise that came harvest time we would have a confit party!)

After pouring lashings of delicious unctuous cream over raspberries and peaches and lightening my coffee with it I decided to have a go at making butter. I had recently picked up some butter paddles at a jumble sale for 25c and was just waiting for such an opportunity to test them out.

The whole process proved to be remarkably simple.

I left the cream out over night on the counter so that it would sour slightly. Then I agitated the cream continuously to separate the solids from the buttermilk. I suppose this part would be traditionally done in a churn but I don't have those kinds of biceps and I certainly don't have that kind of patience so I used electric beaters.

The cream thickened and eventually looked just like whipped cream. If you keep beating past this stage it will look like over whipped cream (surprise surprise!) and after that as if by magic, in one instant, the fat solids miraculously separate out from the buttermilk and Bob's your uncle! You have butter.




If you don't have the convenience of electric kitchen appliances and don't fancy flexing your biceps, I am told that similar results can be achieved by putting the cream in a jar and giving to kids to play with and roll around on the floor. But since I don't have kids I decided to take their word for it.





After that all you need to do is drain the buttermilk away and "wash" the butter. You basically kneed it between the paddles in a bowl of fresh cold water to push out the remaining buttermilk. If you leave any in, the butter will spoil. You need to keep changing the water till it runs clear.

Then salt it to taste and voila!!!!











The whole process took about 20mn and this was the yellowest butter I had ever seen! I had heard that milk and cream from grass fed cows was yellower than milk from the grain fed cows which tends to be much whiter, but now I have seen it with my own eyes. No wonder they add all sorts of dyes to butter. In the olden days, it was yellow of its own accord!!!









Of course nothing is wasted in my kitchen. I used the buttermilk to make little rolls which we had for lunch slathered in butter with a duck egg and spinach Spanish omelet!!!! Country living at it's best!
Can't wait for my next delivery!!!!!!!!!!!