SWF Farmhouse School at Home Day 9
During these most uncertain times, when a lot of people were stocking up on paper goods, peanut butter and other essentials, we were motivated to stock up too. But on what? We already have stocked freezers, protein is there, we are a member of a CSA for veggies, bake our own bread. But what about dairy? And what can we produce ourselves if we needed or wanted to, given the ingredients? Butter!
The idea hatched when chatting with our neighbors about home dairying and bam, 5 gallons of heavy cream from a local dairy farm arrived. When I saw that container I went—ohh boy, I love whipped cream, and need some buttermilk for pancakes and biscuits, but beyond that….how am I going to use all of this!! Then the light bulb went off BUTTER!.
So, being the organized mother that I am—ha—I did some prep work for several days before embarking on the big challenge. I experimented and kept looking for the quickest way to get to the finish line so that we could get our butter made before the cream expired!
I sat back and imagined all sorts of learning moments, talking points, some of which transpired. But as you might expect, the actual process was definitely different than I planned.
Big surprise, my students were not interested in my cool discoveries, talk about times gone by or science lectures, they just wanted to get the job done and start baking with it and and eating it, before we were finished of course.
Except Eden, AND another surprise for me, they were kind of bothered by the mess— she loved the mess, squeezing the butter milk out of the butter and into the bowls.
I’ll admit, there were lots of “moments” including shrill noises and complaining!
Through thick and thin we turned 5 gallons of heavy cream into butter—
This resulted in 14 lbs of butter and countless gallons of buttermilk —all in the home kitchen—It was super messy.
Very messy....it was a true test of my patience and the perseverance of the children....wow, I thought farming projects were hard, but this became crazy. Especially when it was time to cook dinner and the kitchen was still half coated in buttermilk.
There were bowls of buttermilk, bits of butter, dirty towels everywhere and a slippery kitchen floor.
I needed them to squeeze, package, pour, and if they didn’t keep helping I was going to go nuts—-and we couldn’t start and stop easily and abort the mission because we were making a big mess that I didn’t want to clean up twice—-the mess—-it took so long to clean up the butter fat all over the counters, mixers, handles on the sink..OMG...we had buttermilk everywhere.
We did it in about 4 hours, phew….
It is amazing to see the satisfaction when we all dip our knife into that super butter or go to the freezer and pick out another butter stick.
This was what we did:
Used our favorite Kitchen Aid Mixer to beat the cream until it turned into butter
Pour off buttermilk and save for cooking
Squeeze the butter through a towel to get the remaining buttermilk out of the butter
Mix in salt
Shape into sticks —this was hard—
Package them in freezer paper and tape, this was hard—the tape quickly got greasy!!
Pack them in a box in the freezer
Now for the Interviews:
Reno:
What did you think about making butter?
“It’s pretty easy to make because we only spend one day and we get months and months of butter”
What math concepts did you use?
“Almost every time I bake now—which is a lot. I use Grams, to find out how much a stick weighs for the cookies. I have to find conversions. First in almost every recipe you melt right amount of butter and put in sugar and brown sugar and eggs and mix them smooth. First, I have to find out how many grams of butter I need—all recipes say how many cups, we made a chart for this and we use decimals. When I get the butter out of the freezer and I put it on the scale, measure it in grams”.
How did your use your hands?
“To rip the tape, cut and pack it in freezer paper and shape it into squares. It was greasy.”
How long did it take?
“4 hours a very long time, I had to have tons of snack breaks”
Was it worth it?
“Yes, because we have months of butter and there is a pandemic going on and you don’t have to go to the store so much.”
What does it taste like?
“It smells like cheese don’t eat it by itself “
Levi:
What was the hardest part of making butter? “It was a mess”
Did it go well?
“We had a great outcome. But it was a mess. I felt overwhelmed.”
Would you do this again? “Yes.”
What is your favorite recipe to use butter in? “Everything, butter on bread is best:”
Eden:
How much do you like butter?” Scream....”
What was it like to feel the butter in your hands? “Silly.....”
That’s it, our butter adventure is over, and let me tell you we have eaten up a lot of butter since!Reno is a baking machine and somehow all his baked goods disappear!
Thanks for being here, and please tell me about your own pandemic cooking adventures. I know lots of us are finding comfort in the kitchen. Take care and be well,
xoxx Amy
Levi scraping out the butter and saving the buttermilk
Reno shaping and packaging home made butter
Me, in charge of management and the heavy cream!