Making Butter with Wee Ones

My two youngest nieces made a simple request the last time we baked bread together. "Next time, can we make butter, too?". What is an auntie to do, but say, "of course!" And so our adventure in dairy commenced!

Making butter is quite simple - take some rich cream (we used approximately 2 cups to yield a little over 1 cup of butter) and churn it. Not having an old-school churn on hand, we opted for a hand-held electric mixer using whisk attachments. All the faster!

The girls watched and noted that the rich cream was thick and creamy white and quite liquid before starting. Within a few moments of mixing, we had a fluffy whipped cream. We continued to mix and continued to observe changes - like how when the whipped cream started to "break" into butter, it started to turn yellow! As you can see in out photo, the girls accurately described it as looking os scrambled eggs :)

We continued a bit longer - waiting for the buttermilk to separate out. Once we saw this (another "oooh!" moment) we tipped the whole lot into a strainer that we had previously lines with a coffee filter.

The buttermilk can be used for baking - but this first time around we simply strained it and washed the butter well with cold spring water. (The reason for washing is that the buttermilk can cause the butter to go rancid faster). After pressing the butter a few times with a heavy wooden spoon to "let out" the water and milk, we stirred in a pinch of sea salt (this is optional, but it does help the butter last longer - not that we had any worries!)

I think perhaps our next "cookery school for wee ones" project should be milking a cow?
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