Butter
Fresh homemade butter
City/Region: Multiple
Time Period: 1669 | 19th century
Whether the cream came from a yak, camel, reindeer, or cow, was churned on horseback, in an urn rocked back and forth, or by dog-powered contraption, was preserved by adding lots of salt, clarifying, or storing a peat bog, and was used as a medicinal ointment, hair pomade, treatment for swallowed leeches, or as a food, butter has had a long and varied history. Most of us buy butter from the store, but fresh homemade butter is delicious and doesn’t take very long to make (especially if you use a stand mixer). I recommend making it when it’s not summer; you’ll have a much easier time of handling it.
The historic recipe (if you can call it that) below is from the 17th century, but butter was made long before that. Recipes are hard to come by because everyone knew how to make it and there have been many, many methods throughout the world and history. I didn’t use a bundle of white hard rushes, but a 19th century gadget (see notes), and you can go even more modern by using a stand mixer.
“My Lord of S. Alban’s Cresme Fouette
Put as much as you please to make of thick sweet cream into a dish, and whip it with a bundle of white hard rushes (of such as they make whisks to brush cloaks) tyed together, till it come to be very thick, and near a buttery substance. If you whip it too long, it will become butter…”
Ingredients:
- Heavy cream*
- Salt, optional
*See notes below.
Instructions:
- Pour the cream into the jar of a hand crank butter churn (link in the notes) and screw the lid on. After about 7 to 8 minutes, it should resemble whipped cream, which means you’re halfway there. All of the sudden, it will become very difficult to churn, and that means that the buttermilk has separated from the butter.
- Pour as much of the buttermilk out as you can, then put the butter into a bowl. Pour ice cold water over it (if it’s warm water, the butter will melt!), and knead the butter. When the water is very murky, pour it out and repeat the process with clean water 3 or 4 times, or until the water remains mostly clear. This washing removes buttermilk from the butter, and this makes it last longer.
- Wrap the butter in some tightly woven cheesecloth and wring out as much liquid as possible. It’s important that the butter is cold for this step, or else it will just ooze out through the cheesecloth. Turns out August in LA isn’t the best environment for making butter, so I had to put my butter in the refrigerator several times throughout the process to make it manageable.
- Using butter paddles or your hands, squeeze and shape the butter into whatever shape you like. A little more liquid should come out. Add some salt or herbs to the butter as you work it if you’d like.
- Once the butter is shaped, use it as you would in any recipe, or simply serve it forth with some fresh bread.
Notes
- The heavy cream should be at least 36% fat, but use higher if you can find it. Raw cream will have a bit more flavor and is more historic, but pasteurized cream is far safer and is my choice for modern butter. Cream from grass-fed cows will have more beta carotene and will be more yellow.
- Link to the glass hand crank butter churn: https://amzn.to/3YUmWUj
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