Butter!

Well, well, well.....would you look at that. It seems that I made butter :) I've made butter before, by shaking it in a jar, just for fun to show the kids how it was made. But last night I had a 1/2 gallon of cream to make into butter so I opted to use my Kitchen Aid instead.

I didn't take any pictures because:

1) It was really late when I made it and my kitchen was dark
2) I forgot

However it is so simple, so quick and so easy that I am going to outline it here for you (just in case you feel the need to make some butter) and the next time I make it I'll update this post with step-by-step pictures.

How to make butter~ The unofficial, probably wrong, super easy way I did it :)

Step 1~ Pour some cream into your mixer bowl and start whipping it up, just like you are making whipped cream. When it gets to be whipped cream, just keep going! If you watch, you will see the smallish globs of butter become bigger and then the solids will separate from the liquid and look like one big 'ol honkin mess.

Step 2~ Place a strainer with fine mesh over a bowl and dump the whole butter/liquid mixture into it. The liquid will strain off and leave the butter solids in the strainer. I then ran the strainer under cold water and sort of flipped the butter around.

Step 3~ Place the rinsed butter into a bowl and begin squishing the buttermilk out. I would squish, rinse with cold water, squish, rinse with cold water.....and so on until the water was running clear.

Step 4~ Place your newly made butter into a container and run around your house showing everyone you can find that you just made butter. Be amazed at it's fresh flavor. Stare in wonderment at it's amazing yellow color. Text your mother a picture. Put it in the fridge.

Step 5~ Eat it or freeze it. I didn't salt this butter (mostly because I forgot until I woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly remembered) and as I understand it salt helps to preserve the butter and make it last longer. Oops! Oh well, I may not salt a lot of my butter anyway, because I prefer to use unsalted butter in my cooking and baking. But, I also plan on freezing my butter pretty much right away and just getting it out as I need it.

So there you have it, butter fresh from the cow. Can I just add that I did NOT add any coloring to the butter that you see in the picture below? That is just the color God made it. Amazing huh?

I do have one question for all y'all out there~ What do you do with the liquid leftover from butter making? Should I leave it out to sour and use it as buttermilk or should I culture it to make true buttermilk or should I feed it to my chickens or what? Any ideas?