Butter

[Steve Maskery]

Some of you know that I like being in the kitchen as much as like being in the workshop. I didn't get this shape on Pot Noodles.

For some years I have bought rather nice Normandy butter from Morrison's. It has always been expensive. For a long time it was £1.47 a packet, then it jumped to 1.74, then 1.90. At Christmas it was 2.00 and now it is 2.10. A 42% increase in a couple of years. Even Waitrose don't charge as much for the equivalent product. Enough!

Today I bought some double cream. I wanted a big 600ml pot, but although there was a label on the shelf, there was no stock. Bummer. I bought a 150ml pot for something else, but on the way home, passing a Tesco Express I popped in. They had lots of 300ml pots. It's an expensive way to buy a large quantity of cream, but heigh-ho.

So back home I emptied a total of 750ml double cream, plus some single languishing in the fridge, let us say a total of 800ml altogether, into my Kenwood mixer and set the paddle going slowly. I also took about a teaspoonful of sea salt and ground it a bit finer in a mortar and pestle. I like the grittiness, rather than using table salt.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all, for quite a long time. Like an hour or so.

Then it started to get a bit thicker, like whipped cream, then, all of a sudden, I got a big blob of butter and a lot of liquid. Bingo!

Then I washed it under the tap, massaging it as I did so, and I ended up with this:

and this:

So tonight's entertainment is making soda bread with the buttermilk.

From a cost point of view there is a slight saving, but not much, especially as you have to cost in the energy. But from a quality POV, this is just FANTASTIC.

I don't just mean it tastes like butter, it tastes like really most excellent butter.

I can see a butter-pat-making project coming on.

 

[RobinBHM]

I can't believe it's not...............

I can believe it; it really is =D>

You need something to go with such good butter, crumpets? Scones?

 

[sammy.se]

Nice!!

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Chris152]

Even Waitrose don't charge as much for the equivalent product.

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/ ... -6449-6450
£1.50, President on offer (I got some today). Not that it compares to diy, looks great!

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yes, but by the time I'd driven 25mins and the same back...

 

[Steve Maskery]

I can't believe it's not...............

I can believe it; it really is =D>

I did consider using that phrase, but then I thought, "Nah, that will just sound cheesy".

x

 

[NickM]

Yum...

If you want to burn the calories you gain by eating it, you could try putting the cream in a plastic pot with a stainless ball bearing and shaking it. It’s hard work but you’ll end up with butter.

Sark butter is the best though...

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yum...

If you want to burn the calories you gain by eating it, you could try putting the cream in a plastic pot with a stainless ball bearing and shaking it. It’s hard work but you’ll end up with butter.

Sark butter is the best though...

What? Even better than Kirkby butter? Blimey, that must be PDG.

I went to Sark once. No cars, of course, nor any ICE vehicle that is not a tractor. Bicycles only.

Sark, population 500 or so.

There was I, sitting on a bench in the Square, eating an ice-cream, minding my own business, when I spied two people on bicycles.

"That looks like Nick", says I. "That looks like Kate", says I. Nick and Kate were people with whom I used to work and lived about 500 yards from me at the time.

So I had travelled to the ends of Great Britain to meet my next-door neighbours, pretty much.

Sark. 500 people. Two Banks. Hmmm.

 

[Noel]

Yum...

If you want to burn the calories you gain by eating it, you could try putting the cream in a plastic pot with a stainless ball bearing and shaking it. It’s hard work but you’ll end up with butter.

Sark butter is the best though...

What? Even better than Kirkby butter? Blimey, that must be PDG.

I went to Sark once. No cars, of course, nor any ICE vehicle that is not a tractor. Bicycles only.

Sark, population 500 or so.

There was I, sitting on a bench in the Square, eating an ice-cream, minding my own business, when I spied two people on bicycles.

"That looks like Nick", says I. "That looks like Kate", says I. Nick and Kate were people with whom I used to work and lived about 500 yards from me at the time.

So I had travelled to the ends of Great Britain to meet my next-door neighbours, pretty much.

Sark. 500 people. Two Banks. Hmmm.

Thanks Steve, might give that a try. But today was another school day: I never knew where buttermilk came from.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I didn't bake yesterday, but this evening that buttermilk became:

a rather wonky loaf of soda bread. 1/3 Strong white, 1/3 wholewheat spelt, 1/3 dark rye.

I want to try it now, but I've just eaten a delicious chicken & mushroom in white wine and cream pasta dish and I am stuffed. I don't have the appetite I once had

Still, I'm looking forward to breakfast!

This is a bit of an experiment, actually, as bread, normal bread, anyway, has started to give me digestive problems, which is a real pain for a foodie like me. I've made my own bread for forty years.

I've discovered I can eat 100% rye soda bread, but it's not the same, is it? So we'll see if this combo upsets me.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My neighbour has problems with bread - it's the yeast her system doesn't like, not the gluten. You might be OK.

 

[sammy.se]

My wife can eat real sourdough bread (i.e. using starter, not yeast, and where the flour has had time to ferment during proving) but not flour that hasn't gone through that process.

Try some real sour dough recipes, perhaps?

E.g. www.truesourdough.com

 

[Benchwayze]

I have problems with bread too. It causes me to put on weight, I suppose because it's really nothing more than processed food. So the only butter I take is that which I use in cooking.

Try your full English done in butter instead of lard; or along with lard if you wish.

Happy Low-carber here who has lost 4 stones since last November.

I am going to try your method of making butter Steve. Sounds interesting.

John

 

[Jonzjob]

Waitrose sell a raw milk butter. I haven't had any of that since lunch time today, along with rye sourdough bread made by SWMBO. Wonderful stuff and we tend to get through a LOT of the butter. I love the French goats butter they sell to, along with the sheeps butter. All good stuff and very good for you too!

Your butter sounds good stuff Steve!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'm a fairly good baker but I can't get anywhere with sourdough. I've started from scratch and twice from reputable starter cultures, but it just doesn't work - I just end up with a vile, smelly, sour culture.

 

[Rorschach]

I'm a fairly good baker but I can't get anywhere with sourdough. I've started from scratch and twice from reputable starter cultures, but it just doesn't work - I just end up with a vile, smelly, sour culture.

You own natural bacteria etc could be interacting badly with the yeasts.

 

[AJB Temple]

Can't believe I missed this thread!

When Waitrose do Normandy butter on offer, I buy a whole tray of it and freeze it. Usually I buy unsalted as it can always be added.

Like several here, I belatedly realised that bread does not agree with me. I do occasionally eat gluten free but it has the drawback of not tasting much like bread. I too have tried numerous times to make sourdough and despite being a good cook it never works for me, however hard I try to make the culture. I need help!

 

[NickM]

What? Even better than Kirkby butter? Blimey, that must be PDG.

I went to Sark once. No cars, of course, nor any ICE vehicle that is not a tractor. Bicycles only.

Sark, population 500 or so.

There was I, sitting on a bench in the Square, eating an ice-cream, minding my own business, when I spied two people on bicycles.

"That looks like Nick", says I. "That looks like Kate", says I. Nick and Kate were people with whom I used to work and lived about 500 yards from me at the time.

So I had travelled to the ends of Great Britain to meet my next-door neighbours, pretty much.

Sark. 500 people. Two Banks. Hmmm.

I'll have to get my hands on some Kirkby butter for comparison purposes. Sark butter has a very rich yellow colour.

My great gran lived in Sark - she decided Guernsey was too much for her(!) and decamped over there with her eldest son who became a fisherman, postman and saddler.

 

[John Brown]

Sourdough starter is really hard, impossible, in fact.
Whatever you do, it ends up as a foul smelling black mess.
Nobody has ever produced a loaf of bread using sourdough, it's a giant conspiracy theory, like the moon landing.

Chorleywood process is the only true way!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I've tried it several times including with expensive starters for several weeks at a time and ended up with a filthy, sour, stinking mixture every time that wouldn't raise one single bubble. It is not easy or one one of them might have worked.

I do bake regularly - here's today's, that dark intentionally. 60/40 white/brown.