Out-of-Town Adventures

Bonding with Herman the Hound at my parents' home in Tennessee.

I've been enjoying a sneak peek of spring this week, visiting my family (parents, little sister, six dogs, two cats) and friends in Middle Tennessee. There's enough of a chill to keep the pellet stove in use in my family's log home; however, the area's hills are cloaked in soft, lush shades of green.

I did my best to get the household members excited about cultured butter, promising to churn a batch using fresh cream from Hatcher Family Dairy in nearby College Grove, TN. Conveniently, the dairy was represented at Saturday's farmer's market at The Factory, a group of 1929 brick buildings converted to retail space in Franklin, TN. A trip to The Factory was already scheduled: Saturday is Adoption Day at Happy Tales Humane, a "no-kill" animal shelter where my mom volunteers. Two rat terrier pups, the last of a litter that she'd rescued from county animal control, found new families that morning. Congratulations, Cricket and Peanut!

If only the butter had been so successful. I set out three pints of the Hatchers' cream to ripen for several hours. In the meantime, my best friend came over, made us all laugh until our sides ached, and gave me a new hairstyle (v. successful, in my opinion: bobbed and red!). We set about whipping the cream with a hand mixer, visions of buttermilk pancakes dancing in our heads. After half an hour, and attempting to shake the butter in Mason jars, we realized that the endeavor was fruitless-- the cream was frothy, but it hadn't even formed peaks. I retrieved an empty bottle and finally realized that the product was "Whole Cream--Rises to the Top!" Aha. Not heavy cream. Not going to make butter.

Luckily, the fam owns an ice cream machine that exists, as many of its kind, in nearly-permanent hibernation. I adapted Alton Brown's eggless ice cream recipe to make Balsamic Strawberry Ice Cream for a dinner party tonight. I'll also be bringing a wheel of Cowgirl Creamery's St. Pat, an organic, soft ripened cow's milk cheese wrapped in nettle leaves. I found it, among a bustling brunch crowd, at Marche Artisan Foods, a new spot in East Nashville. I liked the cheese for its consistency and herbal flavor, and was glad to have found the seasonal cheese. However, I would have chosen Mt. Tam in retrospect: a triple-cream is a crowd-pleaser, and Mt. Tam is all gentle richness. I'm still on the look-out for Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk, a popular washed-rind cheese... probably the most-requested domestic cheese that I didn't sell in my cheesemonger days.

This trip also yielded a regional cheese discovery: Kenny's Farmhouse Cheese produces raw-milk, semi-firm and blue cheeses in Barren County, Kentucky. The Mattingly family was inspired by the cheese production of family farms in Europe, and embraced the concept of farmstead cheesemaking. Their cheeses are produced with milk from their 120-cow herd, and are made with vegetarian rennet. Kenny's Smoked Gouda was the perfect topping for our fajitas over the weekend. We found Kenny's Cheese at Dennison's Roadside Market in Horse Cave, KY, but there are many retailers listed on the company's website.

Tomorrow, I return to Massachusetts. Maybe springtime will be there to greet me.

Crème Fraîche + Churning = Love

Serving suggestion: Spread cultured butter thickly on bread. Or muffins. Or crackers.

Thanks to Wonderful Husband Charles for white ceramic butter bell.

We've talked a bit about butter here at Savor Culture, even discussed the pleasures of churning (and eating) your own beurre maison.  Well, hold on to your whisk, because butter just got even better.  Cultured butter is more flavorful than sweet cream butter, making it the ideal partner for your carb of choice: potatoes, sliced bread, warm rolls, plain rice, saltines, cornbread.  Or, for the well-behaved, apply it lovingly to spring vegetables like green peas, asparagus, radishes, and artichokes.

Cultured butter is basically churned crème fraîche: starter culture is added to heavy cream, which is ripened for twelve hours or so before churning.  The result is a butter with complexity and a hint of acidity, one that begs for a pinch of salt and a permanent place at the dinner table.  I guarantee that if you serve cultured butter with the bread basket at your next dinner party, your guests will notice.  There are likely several brands of cultured butter at your grocery store; I recommend one with some salt, like the version from Vermont Butter & Cheese Co.  

Making your own cultured butter is simple, but the quality of its few ingredients is paramount.  You will need heavy cream, of course; organic or local cream is preferable, but be sure that it isn't ultra-pasteurized (a sell-by date more than three weeks away is your clue).  Ultra-pasteurized dairy products have been subjected to such high temperatures that their flavor and protein structure are damaged.  

Ripening the cream requires a mesophilic starter culture, which is active at low temperatures.  You may purchase crème fraîche, buttermilk, or fresh starter for this purpose; alternatively, use all-natural (no stabilizers or preservatives) buttermilk or crème fraîche to provide the bacterial cultures.  I used mesophilic culture, which I also used to make mozzarella; the butter has a hint of cheesy flavor.  I believe that buttermilk or crème fraîche culture will produce a milder flavor.

Then, it's a matter of time: allow the cream to ripen overnight at room temperature.  After twelve hours, the cream should appear thickened and have a slightly sour scent, like yogurt or sour cream.  Note: The presence of bubbles indicates undesirable bacteria, and the cream should be discarded.  Using fresh dairy products and clean utensils will prevent this-- I've never had a problem.

Next, the churning, and there's some good news here: butter formation occurs much more quickly with cultured cream than with sweet cream.  In fact, the butter formed so quickly in my stand mixer that buttermilk was splashing on the counter within three minutes!  I haven't used a manual method, such as hand-churning or shaking the butter in a jar, but cultured cream makes it seem doable.  Let the bacteria do the work for you!  The culturing process also produces thicker, richer buttermilk than results from sweet cream butter.  This article contains photos and a detailed account of making cultured butter with a hand churn.

Cultured Butter Recipe

yields 24-26 oz butter and 1-2 pints of buttermilk; can be halved

4 pints heavy cream

1 packet mesophilic starter or 1/3 cup buttermilk or crème fraîche

Good quality salt, such as kosher flake or sea salt, to taste

Allow cream to come to room temperature in a clean, sterilized non-reactive bowl.  Add culturing ingredient and stir well with a clean, sterilized spoon.  Cover loosely and allow to sit at room temperature for twelve hours.

Beat the cultured cream at low speed in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Use plastic wrap to tightly cover the mixing bowl as completely as possible.  First it will resemble whipped cream, then it will appear grainy, and suddenly, granules of butter will separate from the buttermilk.  Drain buttermilk into a clean bowl and refrigerate. 

Rinse the butter with cool water.  Knead with your hands and a clean spoon or spatula, and rinse frequently until the water runs clear (about six rinses).  Knead in a teaspoon or so of salt, to taste.  Divide the butter into four- to six- ounce pieces.  Wrap pieces individually in parchment or wax paper and plastic wrap.  Freeze butter for up to three months.

Since rising food prices are currently a hot topic, let's spend a moment comparing the costs of homemade and store-bought butter.  A pound of my everyday butter, Plugra, costs about the same as a pint of local cream.  Thus, I buy Plugra for baking and cooking.  However, when I ordered a half-gallon of heavy cream from my local dairy, I saved about 40%!  The culture I used was about $1.50, the cost for sea salt was negligible.  Churning and kneading the butter took about ten minutes, clean-up and storage, another ten.  An 8-ounce log of VBCC cultured butter costs around $5, but I compare my cultured butter with their premium Sea Salt variety, a 6-oz pat that sells for $6-8 (admittedly, with fancy packaging).  So, not counting 20 minutes of foregone blogging, my cultured butter costs less than $7 a pound, and I get several cups of delicious buttermilk to boot.  A comparable butter costs $10 to over $20 a pound.  Victory is mine!

Need more inspiration?  Check out the March 2008 issue of Saveur magazine to learn about butter in cuisines from around the world.  I liked learning about smee, fermented butter used in Morrocan cooking.

Solid Gold; or, The Case for Home Buttermaking

Blueberry buttermilk pancakes topped with a generous pat of homemade butter.

Okay, dear readers, here’s the deal: I and a dozen of my (geographically) closest friends have been enjoying the tastiest, most luxurious, homemade butter for a whole week, and I haven’t let you in on it because my draft postings were too technical-sounding and boring. But I’m still so excited about it that I’m writing in run-on sentences, and you just have to try it yourselves! So, here are a few notes to share my enthusiasm and advice, and when you decide to try your hand at buttermaking, consult the sources below for detailed instructions, and get to churning!

I procured organic, gently-pasteurized cream from Butterworks Farm of Vermont. If you get your cream at the grocery store, look for heavy cream that has not been ultra-pasteurized. This process of quickly heating the cream or milk to 191 degrees lengthens its shelf life, but damages its flavor and composition. Therefore, you might be better off with cream from your local mega-dairy (e.g. Hood’s, Dean’s) than from brands like Organic Valley and Horizon. (It goes without saying that the best scenario is to purchase cream from a local farm.)

Allow your cream to warm to room temperature before churning. I used my stand mixer to perform the churning, but don’t tell the folks at KitchenAid or they’ll bring an $80 “butter churning attachment” to the market. I started whipping the cream with the whisk, but switched it for the paddle after twenty minutes; I think that the whisk was breaking up the butterfat globules. When the butterfat and buttermilk separated about five minutes later, I was glad that I’d followed David Patterson’s advice to cover the top of the mixing bowl with plastic wrap, thus avoiding a buttermilk shower.

I dumped the mixture into a colander set in a bowl to collect the buttermilk, which I refrigerated and later used to make blueberry pancakes, ranch dressing, and mashed potatoes (all fantastically delicious, by the way). Next, I kneaded the buttermilk out of the butter in a bowl of cool water, changing the water a few times until it was no longer cloudy. Kneading is important because any residual buttermilk will cause the butter to spoil, even in the refrigerator.

Working the golden-hued butter by hand, I noticed its remarkable plasticity. At room temperature, the finished butter did not acquire the moist clamminess of stick butter, but remained firm and consistent. Its flavor is sweet and herbaceous, its texture tight and unctuous. I tasted the melted butter for the pancake batter, and its richness reminded me of fresh egg yolks. I am going tackle cultured butter next, and am planning to make butter caramels for Christmas gifts.

Well, are you going to try it? It requires only a half-hour of time and one ingredient (two, if you want salted butter). You will optimize the most important qualities of good butter: freshness and high fat content. Think of all of the wonderful things you could do with fabulous buttermilk and butter (if you don’t gobble up the latter on a loaf of fresh bread). One caveat: everyone who tastes your butter will be clamoring for more. Bon courage!

Resources:

"Curd Mentality," by David Patterson, The New York Times, July 1, 2007

"Buttermaking," by Holly Gates, Positron.org

Home Cheese Making, by Ricki Carroll, New England Cheesemaking Supply