Basics

I have to admit, I have been in a major food funk. I didn't want to make food, I didn't want to shoot food and I really didn't want to put too much thought into what food I did want to eat. I needed a kick in the culinary pants. So I decided to do something basic. Really basic. I wanted to make butter.

Butter is really easy to make. I've made butter before....in kindergarten. I thought it was the most awesome thing, making butter and putting it on saltine crackers. I don't remember if we used an actual churn but the devices used to churn butter range from incredibly simple to modern day mixers and food processors. But it all begins with the cream.

My heavy whipping cream came from the wonderful local dairy, Shatto Farms. Now put that cream in a stand mixer or food processor (or anything that blends the cream) and turn it on.

The cream is going to go through various stages of whipping. In the stand mixer it took about 5 minutes to get to the point where the liquid started separating from the solids. You want to drain that liquid through a strainer, thus making buttermilk. Once you've strained the liquid you need to wash your butter in cold water until the wash water runs clear.

Once it reached that stage, I put it back in the mixer and added a little salt and whipped to a nice smooth consistency.

Now it's ready to fry a farm fresh egg or slathered onto a freshly baked loaf of bread.

But really, it's destined to go on my favorite salty snack because nothing kicks my butt out of the food doldrums more than a bowl of hot, buttered popcorn.