Butter making

An exciting time was had by all last evening when Rebecca and I found that Tesco had reduced their double cream to 25p per pot. We should have bought it all but we only bought two. This was mainly due to the fact that we had only taken a basket instead of a trolly and it is surprizing how heavy cream is (when carried in a supermarket basket along with six bottles of beer). Matt soon set to work with his butter churn.










It was amazing that it didn't take long for the cream to be too thick for the paddles to turn.











At this point, he reverted to the tried and tested method of a jam jar with a tight fitting lid to separate the butter from the butter milk. A bit of shaking and red faces, the sound of the butter slopping in the jar happened. it was fascinating to watch as it was sloshing around and suddenly the sound changed to a dull thid as the lump of butter was separated from the liquid. You can see here the lump of butter.







.The jar was tipped into a strainer to extract the butter milk and the next lot was shaken until it separated.











Once it was all separated, it was patted well to extract every last but of milk, salted and neatly packed into ramekins. I had some on a crumpet this evening and can highly recommend it. The amount it made was quite a few packs of butter worth so a bargain for 50p and all done in less than an hour. A well earned pat on the back to Matt, and Rebecca as she did her fair share of jam jar shaking.