One of the great things about owning your own cow (especially a Jersey) is all that lovely cream. One of the easiest things to make with that cream is butter. On this occasion, 8 quarts of cream yielded 5 1/2 pounds of butter.
I start with fresh raw milk and let it stand in the fridge for at least 12 hours, this allows the cream to rise. Notice the yellow layer in the bottles below, that's the risen cream.
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| Milk that has been sitting 12 hours and ready for skimming |
You can buy electric or hand crank butter churns, and shaking the cream in a mason jar will work as well, but I like to use my food processor.
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| 1 quart of cream in the food processor |
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| The butter breaks |
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| Butter |
Once the butter breaks, you need to strain it to remove the buttermilk (this can be saved to use in cooking later). You need to rinse the butter until the water runs clear. I use a kitchen sieve.
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| Straining the butter to remove the buttermilk |
I like to bounce the butter in the sieve after rinsing, this removes some of the water and buttermilk, and forms a nice butter ball to work with later.
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| Butter ready to be worked |
Once the butter has been rinsed and most of the buttermilk strained out, you need to "work" the butter to remove even more buttermilk. The more buttermilk you remove, the better and longer your butter will keep. It is at this point that you add salt to taste. I work the butter with my hands, kneading it almost as though I would bread.
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| Worked butter |
When I am done "working" the butter, I like to form it into balls. I don't measure it, but the butter balls end up being about 1/4 to 1/3 cup each.
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| 5 1/2 pounds of butter |
I like to freeze the butter balls on a plate and then pop them off and store them in a jar in the freezer. Freezing first keeps them from sticking together in the jar.
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| Butter balls ready for the freezer |
Jelly jars make nice butter containers.
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| Butter ready for the table |
