Butter Me Palms

 Here it is Oct. 22nd.  Last post was in June?  Me thinks I am irregular.  But on with the show.

Today I made butter.  Real butter.

Background:  Last spring, we made a trip to Ruidoso.  That is such a nice place.  In one of the many tourist trap stores downtown, I saw these little butter churns  Cute.  I want one.  Ruidoso was selling them for near 3 million dollars.  I figured i could find them online cheaper.  And, I did.  Nut not yet.

A few months later, we move into this new house (new to us).  I still have the fever for a butter churn.  I looked on Amazon, selected the one that looked the best, put it in my cart, and did nothing.   One day I bit the bullet and placed the order.  One week passed and my butter churn arrived.  That is when I found out my daughter had gotten me one for my up-coming birthday.  Sigh.

Yesterday, same daughter bought a quart of whipping cream.  She had previously acquired some cheese cloth from Walmart.  We were ready.  I dug out the butter churn and reread the instructions.  Oops forgot.

They say to set the cream out for at least 2 hours in order to get to room temp.  I was ready to churcn - Couldn't.    Cream was poured into the churn to wait.   Meanwhile, Christine was here and leaving at         4 pm.  .I wanted her to share.  We waited.  She knitted.  I fretted about.

25 min before she was to leave, I started to churn.  The instructions say to turn for 10 to 15 minutes.  I had faith. It was blind faith.  Make that blind.   Instructions were called up on the phone.  

15 minutes of churning produced cream - the same cream I started with.   Perhaps the cream had not warmed up enough?   On the shelf. it went.   An hour passed - I did another 20 minutes   Churn Churn Churn Turn Turn Turn.  Nothing.   Had a thought.  Poured out half of the cream into a large bowl.  More Churn Churn Churn Turn Turn Turn.   Nothing.  I noticed the churn liquid was thicker than the bowl of liquid.  I must be making progress.

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Paused.  Dug in the kitchen for a hand held mixer.   Dumped the churn into another bowl and started the mixer.  Less than 5 minutes and I was getting a thick substance.  It must be butter.

In one person's instructions, you put the butter into a piece of cheese cloth.   Extra liquid is poured off into a glass (this liquid is buttermilk - really) .leaving the butter behind.  Good theory.   They said to squeeze all liquid from the cheesecloth.  Really.  In the video, it worked.  In my practice, the butter squeezed right through the cheese cloth all over my hands.  I now have buttered palms, so to speak. 

Another video - put water in the butter bowl - mix the butter with your hands to get all of the buttermilk out of the butter.  Water in - squeeze butter - pour off water - repeat.   I must be doing something wrong. After much squeezing and butter up to my elbows - I gave up.  With much effort, all available extra liquid was poured off.   Remaining butter plopped into a container.  Extra butter between my fingers is scraped into the containers.

Anyone tells you this is a breeze to do - they lie.  Butter is in refrig waiting for tomorrow morning's toast.  We wait.

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and yes, I will try it again.  The hand held mixer worked the best.  But I will try the butter churn again.  The mixer will stay in reserve.  I think I will wait until my grandgirls come  to visit.  Watching them with butter up to their elbows - that could be fun.