Churning

Cheryl and I got a fun inspiration this morning. Nate had been following some links online since he likes to find great new recipes and he came across this site. He shared the link with me, I shared the link with her, and we raced to the grocery store in search of organic heavy cream and some adventure.

We bought two cups (4 half pint cartons) of organic heavy cream and got started. We poured all four containers into the food processor and after about two minutes we had whipped cream!

Then we realized that we weren't going to get very far without a mixer, so we switched to a hand mixer. After a few minutes we got a slightly chunkier texture.


Then after about 5 more minutes of steady mixing, it suddenly happened. We had butter curds and buttermilk (which I was so fascinated by that I forgot to get a picture)! Here's the straining process...

And here's the resulting buttermilk! Nate's going to make biscuits this week. YUM.

Then we divided the butter into four balls, squeezed out the remaining milk and rinsed with cold water which supposedly helps it keep longer. This whole process took 10-15 minutes and was SUPER easy! I highly recommend trying it!

Next we cut herbs and mixed them into the four butter balls.

Sage:

Rosemary:

Fresh garlic:

And plain salted:


I will definitely be doing this again - in fact, I might never buy butter again. It's that good! I'd like to do a bit more experimentation and find the best blends of herbs and give little herbed butter balls at Christmas!

If you want to try this all you need is heavy cream, a mixer and a big bowl, and some herbs. Mix, add in herbs, then roll in wax or parchment paper and enjoy!