Comments on: Bread and Butter

By: Natalie Rose

Natalie Rose — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:49:55 +0000

This reminds me the time I made bread and butter for a school project. Most of the charm for me is definitely in the kneading. And the wonderful aroma that fills the house as the bread bakes… now I’m hungry:)

By: Sora

Sora — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:58:18 +0000

I made all our butter the year we had a cow. I churned it 1.5 lbs at a time in the same Bosch mixer I use for bread dough. Our cow was a Jersey, and our butter was so very brightly yellow that visitors often asked me if I colored it (I didn’t).
Jerseys, Guernseys, Alderneys, and other “older” dairy breeds have very high levels of carotene in their milk fat. Most store-bought cream is from Holsteins, who – if they are even grass-fed at all – do not pass as much of the carotene from the grass into their milk fat.

Washing out all the buttermilk with cold water is not a step to skip if you plan to store the butter several days – buttermilk left in the butter will cause it to go rancid more quickly. If you’re eating all the butter as soon as you make it – easy to do with baby food jar quantities and homemade bread – you can just squeeze the buttermilk out without rinsing.

I don’t really miss the work of hand-milking twice a day and having to make cheese two or three times a week to free up space in the fridge, but oh, do we miss the unlimited home-made pasture-fed Jersey butter. And the cream, to which no store-bought cream could ever possibly compare. And homemade ice cream. And the cheese. Not to mention the incredible milk…

By: cloudscome

cloudscome — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:35:39 +0000

This is a wonderful post. I am enjoying all your commenters too. Such wisdom gathered! I want to try making butter but I am a little leery about giving my boys (5 & 3) glass jars. They are sure to drop them at least once in the shaking. I make gluten free bread, which doesn’t get kneeded, so the bread machine works for us but I heart what you said: “the machine killed the fun”. I suspect that may be true about a lot of things.

By: Beate

Beate — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:00:54 +0000

Hey Lissa – your post (and the one about art) reminded me of a simple yet lovely picture book Blue Bowl Down. Even my older dc were inspired not only to make bread, but to use the artists technique after finishing the book

We made butter before by giving each of the dc a babyfood jar with cream – everyone got to shake his own

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:11:31 +0000

It must have been a butter-making sort of week! We did the very same thing last week, on the very same day! And we were reading in our Little House Cookbook about just how we should make the butter. My girls loved the experience, but only one liked the flavor of the buttermilk. Which doesn’t really surprise me, since we don’t normally drink any dairy I love how resourceful I feel when we make our own butter, and then have yummy buttermilk pancakes with homemade butter melting on top. Yum.

By: MomToCherubs

MomToCherubs — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:18:35 +0000

For making butter with baby food jars, first fill half the jar with the cream, and then add one clean marble. This will speed up the butter’s “gathering” acting as a churn, and will also enable the children (or you) to hear how the shaking is going. The best way is an easy consistant rhythm. (It is also fun to make this “music” while making butter too !)

Do you have any dairy farms near by ?? One might give you a pint or quart of raw milk to make butter with – it is even better than butter made with heavy cream (and will be more yellow in color too). You could try to request a tour – maybe they will let your family try their hands at milking “by hand” the way the Ingalls did. It is a neat once-in-a-lifetime experience !

God Bless.
MomToCherubs

By: Tessa

Tessa — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:10:06 +0000

Yep, I second the marble suggestion! ) Yum!