Big Daddy Butter

Today I will be mostly making butter. Except I won't, as it really didn't take that long. Who knew?!

After procuring several tubs of double cream from the good old Hinxden Farm Dairy, I realised this is all the ingredient hunting I needed. Amazing news.

Now the easiest way of making butter these days is by using a food processor, but I don't have a food processor, so I used my hand blender. Thank goodness I at least had a hand blender, as I really didn't fancy the shaking method, no matter how good for bingo wings it may be.

Keep going, it's not ready yet.

1. Pour an amount of cream into a bowl. I used 30 fl oz, which is in the region of 887 ml apparently. You can use any amount you wish though, I just fancied a large block, 'cos I love butter. On everything. If I could, I'd roll in it.
2. Grab your hand blender and start to whizz it up. Your cream will begin to thicken and turn to whipped cream. Your hand blender will apparently get sucked into the vacuum of cream and it will seem as if you are trying to agitate thickening cement. Don't give up! Keep whizzing it, it will all come together, I promise! I believe in you!! I found a loud "grrrrr" helped the process along, maybe you could try imagining a Rocky style montage.
3. Just about when you've lost all hope and believe it's all gone wrong, you may start to notice that within the lumpy stodge in your bowl, there is now appearing a splashy liquid. This is what we want! That is buttermilk, a derivative of making butter
4. Bring all the solids together for a final few blasts of the blender. It should look something like this:

Note the milky liquid

After this, with cold hands, you want to squeeze as much buttermilk out of the butter as possible. Once you think you've done this, wash the butter in cold water and squeeze out a couple more times, until the water is clear. Removing the buttermilk stops the butter from prematurely spoiling. It should keep in the fridge for a couple of months, even longer in the freezer. I doubt it will last that long here, as I plan to smother myself in it use it for cooking and eating with everything.

I couldn't wait to try it and it's flaming lovely on a cracker, no other props necessary. I wonder if it tastes so brilliant because I made it myself or because the cream is so good? It's probably the cream.

One monster sized block of butter

I reserved my buttermilk and tomorrow will be using it with my lovely Hinxden Dairy whole milk to make cheese! I may even add in a little leftover cream.

Mmm...buttermilk

The rest of my cream went into making a horseradish sauce to go with my smoked salmon dinner. And here is the simplest of simple recipes:

1/2 cup double cream

2 tsp lemon juice

4 tbsp grated fresh horseradish

salt & pepper

Horseradish in cream

1. Dump it in a bowl, bring out your trusty hand blender and whoosh it up. Dollop on a plate with some lovely salmon.  That's it.

Fishy dinner