Making Butter

We decided on this rainy, rainy weekend to make some homemade butter and homemade bread for lunch yesterday.  We started with a pint of organic cream that we poured into a quart jar for the kids to shake.  I assumed they'd quickly tire of shaking the jar, so we decided to shake the jar while watching an episode of Jeff Corwin in Denali National Park, Alaska. (Do your kids love that show as much as mine?  We don't have cable, but you can get the dvds on Netflix.)

Finn was eager to get in on the shaking.

When the cream was getting close to being butter, the buttermilk started separating from the butter.

After pouring off about a cup of buttermilk, the butter pulled away from the sides of the jar into a blob in the middle of the jar.

After rinsing and salting, this is the butter that remained.

We each had a generous serving of homemade bread with our home-shaken butter.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it!

Can you tell?

With the leftover buttermilk, we decided to make strawberry buttermilk cake, from Apples for Jam, and just have breakfast for dinner.  The kids were pretty thrilled that one project produced 2 special treats.

For more precise directions on shaking your own butter, you can look here.