Creamy Home-Made Butter

Words, recipe and images by Charlene Trist

The best butter begins with quality cream. It should be very fresh, with low acidity, no off odours or tastes. While most supermarket brands of cream will work just fine, you will most certainly end up with superior product if you can manage to source your cream from a small scale dairy farmer at your local farmers market or specialty store. When it comes to butter, quality cream translates to superior flavour and the best quality cream comes from grass feed cows on open pasture. Irish poet Seamus Heaney actually calls butter “coagulated sunlight” and milkfat is indeed the sun’s energy, captured by the grass on which the cow feasts and repackages in scattered, microscopic globules.

Tools - what you will need to get started

A large mixing bowl

1 stand mixer or electric hand beater

Cheesecloth

1 sieve

Tub or basin

Ingredients

1 litre of good quality pure cream

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

500g ice

Method

1. Pour the cream into a large bowl and beat it until you have whipped cream.

When we agitate cream through whipping (or concussing), we start to create a “foam” as the mechanical action introduces lots of air bubbles that attract the fat globules. Because of their molecular affinities, the fats will cluster around the surface of every air bubble.

2. Keep beating until you have a separation of fatty clusters and a milky liquid. This is the butter and buttermilk. This will take about 10 minutes.

As we beat more air into the foam, more physical pressure is put on the fat globules and their outer membrane. As they are squeezed, needle-like crystalline fats penetrate the membrane and cause it to rupture (denature). At the same time, the ruptured fat globules are tumbling around and around the bowl which causes some of the liquid fats to leak through the membrane. This viscous fat acts like sticky glue, making the fat globules adhere to one another. With more rapid beating, the fats coalesce (come together /combine).

3. Pour the mixture into a cheesecloth lined sieve. Wrap the cloth around the butter and twist it to make a tight ball. Keep twisting the cloth, until all the buttermilk has been drained. Reserve the butter milk for delicious buttermilk scones or pancakes.

4. Transfer the butter to a tub or basin of chilled water and knead for two to three minutes.

Kneading the butter in chilled water will flush out any remaining buttermilk which can make the butter go rancid more quickly.

5. Remove the butter from the water and add salt. Knead for an additonal minute or until well combined.

6. Keep the butter in a sterilised glass jar or airtight container and refrigerate until needed.