I love butter. (Don't we all?) I really and truly do. Perhaps not quite as much as Paula Deen does, and I'm grateful for that, but still... Case in point: I have very fond memories of a terrible trip to Paris. The trip sucked and I spent a lot of time in my shitty hotel room. My so-called friend turned out to be a worthless skank. Meanwhile, back at home, my piece-of-shit brother robbed someone at gunpoint and then got caught by the cops in MY CAR (which he didn't have permission to use), and my trip money went to bailing his sorry ass out of jail. I did mention a fond memory, though, and that was baguettes and the most delicious butter which is what kept me fed and reasonably content for the duration of my stay.
Having said all that, I was truly excited to stumble across a blog post on The Traveler's Lunchbox about making your own cultured butter like they've got over there in France. The description had my mouth watering and I was all over it. I figured that since I've been making bread here and there, my labor deserved to be crowned by magic.
So, I trucked over to Whole Foods to buy the most ridiculously expensive raw cream (the butter would only be as good as what went into it, right?). Because each pint of cream cost $13 (yes, that's THIRTEEN DOLLARS), I decided to halve the original recipe. I just wasn't willing to spend 26 bucks on butter, even if it's the best butter ever.
Well, I got the ingredients home, printed out the recipe and set to work. For some reason, I decided to measure out the cream and I'm glad I did. I purchased a pint bottle labeled as 470 mL. Upon measuring, I found it to contain only 420 mL. I adjusted the rest of the recipe but I was not pleased. In fact, for the first time ever, I contacted a food producer. I emailed them politely and suggested that they might want to check on their packaging operation. The guy that answered was not amused. In fact, he was downright icky to me saying that I was lucky to be able to buy raw cream and did I know what it takes for them to get it into markets, etc.
Please check The Traveler's Lunchbox for the recipe and photos. The butter came together perfectly and I'm pretty happy to be able to say that I made butter. I've got to say, though, that I wasn't blown away. The loving description had me expecting butter beyond compare, like real earth-shattering, life-changing butter. I got butter. It's good, but I don't think any better than any of the higher-end butters I can find around LA. As costly as the cream was, I don't think it's worth the expense either.
Still, I've got butter under my belt (in more ways than one!) and that's pretty cool.
-steen
tags: home-made+butter
That's a pretty horrible Paris story. I think it was probably a good thing you were out of the country, though.
About the butter, I never heard of making it like that. I have, in a pinch, taken cream (frankly I don't remember if it was fancy schmancy...I guess it wouldn't have been ultrapasteurized...but it also didn't cost THIRTEEN dollars)and just let it rip in a food processor. I never added salt to it, but I don't know why you couldn't. And didn't yours have a very tangy taste? I don't think of French butter as THAT, I think of it as having a butterfat content off in another stratospehere and you can buy THAT at Whole Foods. It's called Plus Gras butter. It IS sooooooooo good.
PS I think you should report the cream producer to the Czar of Weight and Measures.
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