Homemade Butter

Alex is home for a brief intermission from teacher bootcamp and I made him homemade butter to celebrate his return home (and the return of me eating square meals).  I think that I deserve best girlfriend award for this, or maybe the lamest person ever award since I made this on a Friday night.  Anyway, homemade butter is the way to go!

I made butter once in the 2nd grade during our Oregon Trail unit.  Ms. C had taped off an area in our classroom that was designated as a wagon, and we all scrambled to make sure that we had a "seat on the wagon" so that we didn't have to "walk" Westward.  That may have been my most favorite unit ever, and it didn't hurt that we made butter.

Way back in the olden days making butter was a big PITA.  You either had to churn it, or if you were a pioneer you could put the buttermilk in a pail and hang it off of the side of your wagon and let the bumps in the road churn your butter for you.  In the 2nd grade we made our butter by taking turns shaking a bucket.  I used a whisk attachment on my stand mixer to make my butter, then used my blender to wash it.  I would recommend just using a food processor to do this (not a mini chopper!), but you will have a lot more hard-to-clean dishes piling up in your sink.  Rating 100/10.

Ingredients

Heavy whipping cream

• Place your heavy whipping cream in a stand mixer or food processor and whip/pulse for about 10 minutes, or until your butter has obviously separated from the buttermilk.  It will be yellow and float to the top (or be stuck inside of your whisk).
• Strain the buttermilk and use a spoon to squish out any remaining liquid.  Reserve buttermilk for pancakes!
• Throw a cup of ice cold water into the butter and beat for 30 seconds, repeat the draining process, but this time discard the liquid.
• Pack in a covered jar and use within 14 days.  This shouldn't be hard.