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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Monday, April 28, 2008 Ode to my Bosch mixer How do I love thee... let me count the ways: you knead my bread dough, and if that was all you did, you'd be worth every penny I paid for you. But you also grind wheat, and you flake oats. And now you make butter!I've been skimming off and collecting the butter from each week's batch of milk, except for the week I made cheese (and the first week when I greedily drank everything, cream and all!). I froze it for several weeks as it accumulated, and this morning I made butter! Years ago, when I could get cream from a local dairy, I made our own butter, but since then I've had to depend on organic butter from the supermarket. While it claims to be organic, it's still from unknown sources and heavily salted to boot.I always used a hand mixer before (the old-fashioned kind, not a stick mixer), and that was what I planned to do this time too. But I glanced over some web pages to see what others had tried, and found the Walton Feed site, source of so much good information. Halfway down the page was a description of how someone had made butter with cream straight from the fridge in their Bosch mixer.This has to be the easiest butter-making experience I've ever had. I poured all the cream into the mixer bowl, affixed the cake mixing whisks, secured the lid, and away we went on the slowest speed.After about five minutes, I had whipped cream. This wouldn't have taken as long if the cream had been warmer, but since the mixer was doing all the work, I didn't mind.It's just beginning to get granular here. You can see bits and chunks of butter separating from the whey. As the cream thickened, it climbed up the walls of the bowl, and I thought I'd have to clean it off with a spatula to get it back down in the whisks. But as it turned into butter, it became heavy enough to fall back into the bowl from its own weight.We have butter! Lovely chunks of bright yellow butter floating in whey. I poured the whey through a strainer/funnel into a quart jar. The few little bits of butter that flowed out with the whey stayed in the strainer and went back into the bowl.It's important to get just as much whey out as you possibly can, because it will sour and spoil the butter even if you keep it in the refrigerator. So I worked it well with my hands, poured some cold water in on top and worked it some more, and finally had a pound of butter and a quart of sweet buttermilk. In older days, the cream would have been soured first and the buttermilk would have more of the sour taste we associate with today's cultured buttermilk.I haven't decided what to do with the whey. It takes about a gallon of whey to make a half pound of any of the whey cheeses, so this isn't nearly enough. It'll probably just get drunk up.The only problem with all of this is that I use butter a lot faster than I'm accumulating cream. I talked with my milk supplier about substituting some cream on occasion for some of the milk, but he said he doesn't have a good way to separate out the cream yet. He bought a cream separator, but he isn't happy with the way it's working. So for now, I guess I'll have to ration my butter to make it last until I have enough cream to make more. I'm going to treat myself right now, though, with homemade bread (thank you again, my lovely Bosch!) and homemade butter. posted by Liz @ 11:13 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 Feedjit Live Blog Stats
How do I love thee... let me count the ways: you knead my bread dough, and if that was all you did, you'd be worth every penny I paid for you. But you also grind wheat, and you flake oats. And now you make butter!I've been skimming off and collecting the butter from each week's batch of milk, except for the week I made cheese (and the first week when I greedily drank everything, cream and all!). I froze it for several weeks as it accumulated, and this morning I made butter! Years ago, when I could get cream from a local dairy, I made our own butter, but since then I've had to depend on organic butter from the supermarket. While it claims to be organic, it's still from unknown sources and heavily salted to boot.I always used a hand mixer before (the old-fashioned kind, not a stick mixer), and that was what I planned to do this time too. But I glanced over some web pages to see what others had tried, and found the Walton Feed site, source of so much good information. Halfway down the page was a description of how someone had made butter with cream straight from the fridge in their Bosch mixer.This has to be the easiest butter-making experience I've ever had. I poured all the cream into the mixer bowl, affixed the cake mixing whisks, secured the lid, and away we went on the slowest speed.After about five minutes, I had whipped cream. This wouldn't have taken as long if the cream had been warmer, but since the mixer was doing all the work, I didn't mind.It's just beginning to get granular here. You can see bits and chunks of butter separating from the whey. As the cream thickened, it climbed up the walls of the bowl, and I thought I'd have to clean it off with a spatula to get it back down in the whisks. But as it turned into butter, it became heavy enough to fall back into the bowl from its own weight.We have butter! Lovely chunks of bright yellow butter floating in whey. I poured the whey through a strainer/funnel into a quart jar. The few little bits of butter that flowed out with the whey stayed in the strainer and went back into the bowl.It's important to get just as much whey out as you possibly can, because it will sour and spoil the butter even if you keep it in the refrigerator. So I worked it well with my hands, poured some cold water in on top and worked it some more, and finally had a pound of butter and a quart of sweet buttermilk. In older days, the cream would have been soured first and the buttermilk would have more of the sour taste we associate with today's cultured buttermilk.I haven't decided what to do with the whey. It takes about a gallon of whey to make a half pound of any of the whey cheeses, so this isn't nearly enough. It'll probably just get drunk up.The only problem with all of this is that I use butter a lot faster than I'm accumulating cream. I talked with my milk supplier about substituting some cream on occasion for some of the milk, but he said he doesn't have a good way to separate out the cream yet. He bought a cream separator, but he isn't happy with the way it's working. So for now, I guess I'll have to ration my butter to make it last until I have enough cream to make more. I'm going to treat myself right now, though, with homemade bread (thank you again, my lovely Bosch!) and homemade butter.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
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PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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