I would like to have your recipes for making butter. Please start from milking goat/ cow to the finished project. I will be printing them out and trying each one as I have the time and the milk. Thanks for all you help/advice.

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), November 03, 2001

Answers

Hi Debbie - I got some great tips the other day that you might want to look at, below on the forum, something like Making butter without a churn - great tips on culturing overnight 1st, using a blender, and all. It helped me! I had no idea butter making was that easy! Helen

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 03, 2001.

Hi, Debbie, I don't think there's an actual "recipe" for making butter because there's only one ingredient - cream. I don't have a cow or goat, but here's what I do - I get a gallon of raw Guernsey milk from a friend, and put it in the refrigerator until the cream rises to the top (I wait about a day). I skim the cream off and put it in a separate jar (and use the skimmed milk for everyday use).

You can do it several ways, make butter from the cream immediately, or wait a few days or even a couple of weeks. I usually wait a week or so, then take the cream out of the refrigerator and put it in the churn and let it sit overnight or until it reaches room temperature. Then, I churn! I sit at the counter with a book in one hand, the other hand turning the handle, and the time goes fast. When I can "feel" that the churn handle is turning harder, I check, and usually the butter has come (the foam is usually all gone, the milk is a bluish-white, and you can see BUTTER in lumps).

I pour out the "buttermilk" through the strainer in the top of the churn and save it for making bread. Then, I run cold water into the churn through the strainer (at the top of the churn), and save that first rinsing for the compost pile. I keep running cold water in and pouring it out until it looks pretty clear.

Then I take the top of the churn off and take the butter out onto a small wood chopping block that I save for this, and start "working" the butter (turning it over and over and squeezing it - I use a wooden spatula or my hands), all the time dribbling cold water over it from the tap, until the water running from the butter is clear as can be. I guess butter spoils faster if any trace of buttermilk is left in it.

You can then sprinkle some salt over it (I just guess and taste - according to how much butter I have) and work it in. Then I just put the butter into a container, label, date, and freeze it.

Oh, and sometimes the butter seems "different" than other times, but I've done the same things; in other words, sometimes it's creamier or a tiny bit darker or lighter in color - must be what they're feeding the cows, or the time of year, or whatever! I'm sure there are many other different methods that you could use, but this works for me.

Good luck, and just keeping trying....

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), November 03, 2001.

Check out "Churning Butter Without a Churn" 11-10-2001, below. There are all sorts of good ideas.

-- Rosalie (deatline@globalsite.net), November 03, 2001.

We make butter in a mayonaise jar by tipping it(and the cream)back and forth 'till the butter starts clumping. Then follow up as above. Works fine. LQ :)

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), November 05, 2001.