Butter up!

I love how creative God is!  He creates with ultimate efficiency.  Think of the cow.  He created the cow for people to enjoy.  We get milk, meat and leather from cows. In addition, the milk can be transformed into many different culinary delights like cream for our coffee, butter for our bread, cheese for our pizza, whipped cream for our pies and ice cream as our dessert.  Plus many other parts of a cow are used in ways I had not comprehended (see the link below). Naturally after milking a cow, I wanted to transform the milk in a way I never have before; I wanted to churn butter.

As a child, I remember seeing old wooden churns in historical displays with women moving the wooden dowel up and down as a demonstration of how butter was churned.  As a young baker I have over whipped cream and it turned from a dessert yummy to a buttery mess.  As a teacher I’ve seen classes make butter in a Ziploc bag or a mason jar.  I decided to fulfill part of my farm fantasy by actually churning butter.

I did not have a large wooden churn, but Amazon sells a small plastic one with a beechwood handle.  Of course it arrived in two days.  I purchased some heavy cream (I couldn’t take the cream from the Rosie as she kicked the bucket and spilled the milk) and frozen sourdough bread. What would butter be without some yummy bread on which to spread it?

I poured the cream to the fill line on the container and began churning away.  The directions said it would take between 10-15 minutes for butter.  I moved the dowel up and down at a steady rate.  I thought my arm would tire, but it didn’t. 

I checked the butter after 7 ½ minutes of churning and could begin to see the transformation.  At over 9 minutes I could definitely see the whey separating from the solids of the cream.  When I hit 11 minutes it was time to pour off the whey.  I continued to churn to make sure I had removed all the whey.  At 13 ½ minutes I was done.  The whey was fully separated.  I had to rinse the butter a few times to make sure the solids didn’t have any whey residue.  I was done! 

The churn was great in how it was designed.  When I was done with the butter I just pressed the bottom off of the container and the butter was out.  The bread was in the oven filling the house with the lovely baked yeast smell.

Last was enjoying the sweet creamy butter on the hot sourdough bread!  Life is good! #22✔

12 Surprising uses of a cow:

https://www.ozy.com/acumen/12-surprising-ways-to-use-the-cow-without-eating-a-bite/33181