Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cream
Strain the milk into your pans and add 1 gallon of boiling water for every 6 quarts of milk.
Let the milk stand for cream: 1 day in summer, 2 days in winter.
Skim the cream and place it in the coldest spot available.
Churn the butter
Churn the cream twice a week, transferring it daily into fresh scalded pots.
Once the butter forms, pour off the buttermilk and place the butter in scalded pans cooled in cold water.
Wash and form
Beat the butter with a flat board until all buttermilk is removed, changing the water as it becomes colored.
When the water is clear, add salt, weigh, and form the butter.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Provides the cream that is skimmed off and churned into butter.
- Cream (in the method)
- Its fat globules clump together during churning, forming the butter.
- Boiling water
- Added to the milk, it helps the cream rise to the surface for skimming.
The step that matters
Beat the butter until all buttermilk is removed. Buttermilk left in the butter is rich in milk proteins and sugars that break down and cause spoilage and off flavours. Repeated rinsing in clear water removes it, so the butter keeps better and tastes cleaner.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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