Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake Your Butter

I recently found a source for raw cow's milk. We are really enjoying it. It tastes amazing but it can be used for so many things.

My first use for the milk other than drinking and cooking was to attempt to make butter. My first attempt taught me a few "not to" tips.

I began by scooping the cream off the top of the milk. This gallon yielded me about 4 cups of cream. The other gallons had closer to two cups each. I left the cream out on the counter overnight to culture.

The next morning came the fun part. I rounded up the seven best helpers I could find and let them shake the jar.

And shake.

Giggle and shake.

Shake extra hard.

A little gentle jostling.

Extreme shaking.

A little light rolling.

Shaking and grinning.

Some more rolling.

Here's where Mommy got a little impatient. I read on the Internet you could also put the butter in the blender. I tried that and overchurned it. We ended up with 4 cups of full fat buttermilk. So we tried again.

This time after shaking, we shook it some more. And then a little more. The first time we had butter to work with we used cheese cloth. The next time I strained the buttermilk off using a spoon to hold the butter back. The cheese cloth was just an unnecessary step.

Then the butter needs to be rinsed with cold water. I added water to the jar and . . . you guessed it shook it some more! I added water 3 or 4 times and poured it off until the water was clean. The cold water helped the butter stick together. After the milk was all rinsed away, I added some salt as we prefer salted butter.

All together we netted about 1 lb (4 sticks - 2 cups) from two gallons of milk (around 4 cups of cream).

Up next, homemade bread!