In May of 2010, Tesco's had 600ml tubs of double cream on special offer at only £1 each, I decided that this would be a good time to try my hand at butter making.
I purchased 6 tubs and got out my trusty old Kenwood food mixer,
After sterilising the whisk, beater blade and stainless steel bowl, I emptied all six of the cartons of cream into it, and using the baloon whisk, began to slowly whip it.
As it started to thicken I changed the balloon whisk for the K beater, and covered the bowl with the plastic cover that came with it, as I had heard that as the butter starts to form, the butter milk separates from the cream, and tends to slosh about a bit.
I continued mixing and eventually I could see and hear the buttermilk sloshing about.
I stopped the mixer, on removing the cover this is what I found
The process gets a bit hands on from here as the butter has to be washed in cold water to remove the remainder of the butter milk,
I cut it from the beater blade, sat it on a large tray to drain.
I then cut it into 150gm (approx) chunks and rinsed
them under the cold tap, gently squeezing slightly as I did.
Each of these chunks were then patted dry with kitchen towel and roughly moulded to the required shape and put into the fridge to cool .
15 mins later each piece of butter was rolled to shape and wrapped in
clingfilm ready for the freezer.
From the six cartons of cream I got almost a
kilo of butter and about 3/4 of a pint of buttermilk.
It is the best butter I've tasted in a long while, it can be salted to taste during the churning stage, but I like to put it on new bread and sprinkle it with coarse sea salt and a little cracked black pepper (is it any wonder I am on cholesterol tablets)
This can also be made in a food processor in smaller batches.