Buttering Up

Betty Botter bought some butter 
And she put it in her batter ---
But she found the batter bitter
So she bought some better butter
(Better than the bitter butter!)
And she put it in her batter
And the batter wasn't bitter.
So t'was better Betty Botter bought some better butter.

I made butter today. Kinda just for the heck of it. The ultimate goal was to obtain two tablespoons of buttermilk, because I have a recipe for home-made soft cheese I want to make for New Year's.

In true 90-second-Deb fashion, I quickly scanned the recipes, mostly to work out whether to use the regular beater on the KitchenAid mixer, or the whisk. It's the whisk.

I poured a liter of whipping cream into the bowl and slowly ramped the speed up to 10.

That's when I realized I should have done what the recipe said and used a towel to catch the splashes. Undaunted, I obtained said towel and watched the mixer do its thing.

And watched.

And watched.

Damn. I needed to read that recipe again to see how long this takes! Turns out, it takes ten full minutes of the KitchenAid on speed 10.

So I returned to my task and the mixer returned to its. Now, years ago, when I first got my own KitchenAid mixer, I nearly set it on fire the first day because I used it to knead bread - too large a recipe for too long. This is why I was concerned and re-read the recipe, because Hubby's mixer was getting just a teensy bit warm.

I needn't have worried - in just a few moments more the transition began, buttermilk pouring out of solution and pure butter (looking like scrambled eggs) floating on it. After that I poured of the precious buttermilk into a container - I got over a cup! - and then rinsed the butter and squeezed the rest of the buttermilk down the  drain as best I could.

Admiral, there be butter here! And buttermilk!

In a few quick minutes the cheese concoction was set to warming, the butter stored in the fridge, and tidying done.

Now that I'm sitting thinking about this, I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like in OLDEN times, making butter by hand! Oh sure, they had churners made in various sizes, which worked, I assume, to varying degrees of success! But OMG!!! The hours it must have taken! Unless they literally did tiny amounts every day! C'mon - ten minutes at maximum on a huge mixer = at least five hours backbreaking work!

Once again, I am happy to be a child of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, despite my penchant for learning to make butter, chop wood, spin yard, knit, and quilt! Oh, and home-can a lot of food!