Monday 1 October 2012

better butter



Mondays sometime end up half work, half tinkering about.
I spent the morning emailing and doing shop/work stuff and then headed out to Bunnings (could their service be any worse??), got some plywood cut, bought a couple of tomato plants I have nowhere to put, trailed up and down the stacks and chose a replacement kitchen rubbish bin that is exactly the same as the one in the kitchen now, just 4 1/2 years younger and clean, then off to one of our wholesale supply places and back to the shop.
I started culturing up some cream to make butter and decided to beat it this afternoon. I haven't made butter since I was about 6 years old but it is one of those things that has just stuck in my head and with my addiction to handmade butter (wanker) I thought it was about time to make some, having picked up the Gourmet Farmer Deli Cookbook when I was in Tasmania probably hasn't helped. Anyway I chucked the cream in the KitchenAid, draped a towel over it to catch the splatters and turned it on. Easy-peasy. Except for the bit right at the end where I left the kitchen for less than a minute at what turned out to be a crucial time and returned to find a pool of buttermilk on the floor and bench. Luckily the saturated tea towel stopped the mess spreading across the ceiling and walls.
The butter got washed and squeezed and salted and some may have been eaten spread on some seriously average scones. I need some butter paddles, their grooves really come into play getting the excess moisture out and I am worried that I haven't squeezed this batch enough. We might have to use it up in some salty choc chip cookies.
Really should have been doing 'real' work but sometimes you just have to have a play afternoon.


1 comment:

  1. you've just reminded me of mum making butter, and those beautiful paddles. nice.

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