Home-made butter

It’s just a question that popped up in my mind and I wondered what it would be like to make it myself. I was immediately made to look up recipes and do research to find out how it was actually made. It ended up being surprisingly deadly simple. So simple even, that I was done in no time as well.
I used the standard whipping cream you can buy here, but I’m aware that in countries as England and America you have heavy, half or double cream and who knows how many more kinds?! So I thought I’d mention that the cream I used had 35% fat.
Also for the storing, since it's real butter, it will get rockhard when you leave it in the fridge for a while. So it's best stored somewhere out of the fridge, or taken out of the fridge an hour or so before use.

Ingredients:
Whipping cream (250 ml)
Water (6 x 200-400 ml)

1. Put the whipping cream in an kitchen machine or beat it with an electric mixer. If you think you are really good you can also put it in a jar and shake. The whipping cream will start out liquid, go to foamy, then to whipped cream, then it will start looking like thick, clotted cream and eventually you will start getting butter.
2. Besides the butter you will have buttermilk, which you need to poor out into a cup at this point.
3. Add water (I used about 200-400 ml a time) and mix again. This way you will ‘wash’ the butter. Keep adding water and draining it again until the water comes off clear.
4. Beat a few times without adding water, or mix it with a spoon, while trying to get the last water out and drain that.
5. Add salt if you want salted butter!

And there you go! You’ve actually made butter. I thought it looked a bit lighter than normal butter. It tastes really creamy and lovely! The buttermilk you have left in step 2 tasted just like whole milk to me. I drank a bit that day, but the next day or the day after it had already fallen apart into two layers. So you can’t keep this for long, but it’s really nice to drink right after making butter anyway. It's a nice surprise to know that besides butter you can actually now also make milk!
The reason we’re washing the butter in step 3 is to ensure the butter lasts longer. In the end my butter lasted about a week or two, then the last bit that was left started tasting like cheese. If you’re sure you’ll only need the butter for that day (because maybe you planned on a breakfast for the whole family with home-made butter) then you can skip step 3.
I was pretty proud I actually made butter even though it’s such an easy process. I definitely plan on doing this more often. Perhaps on the next high tea or lunch I want to organise I can use it? Also, I should try finding a farmer around here that can provide me real milk, fresh from the cow. Apparently that tastes even better than using whipping cream...!


Note: I took no pictures of this, but you all know what butter looks like right?