Cultured, Raw, Grass Fed Butter

* We linked this post at the Hearth and Soul Hop at Hunger and Thirst *

Butter -- it makes everything better.  So what could make butter better? Culturing it!  Our farmer friends who provide us with delicious raw milk recently fired up their cream separator, which is something we'd been eagerly awaiting for a long time.  At our fist opportunity, we picked up half a gallon of the delicious stuff and after using a quart for various other things, we decided it was high time we had some real cultured butter around here.  Here's how we did it (Check out Nourishing Traditions for more details):

Update:  Here is a really great video about how to make butter from raw milk that I'll be following next time.  I think her method is better than this one (I didn't know about washing butter until I watched it), so I'd say try that one first!



Cultured Raw Cream Butter:

1. 1 Qt. raw cream from grass fed cows

Yes, it has only one ingredient!  You can also salt the butter if you like, but we didn't do that this time around.  Also, if you want extra reassurance of the type of cultures in the cream, add a tablespoon or two of yogurt to the mix to give the good guys a head start.  First, put the cream someplace where it will stay at room temperature overnight (Warning: don't do this with pasteurized cream -- there's no telling what will populate your butter for you in that case):

After your cream has had a chance to get cultured, put it in the food processor in batches.  It should smell kind of "cheesy" -- if you think it smells bad, rotten, moldy, or otherwise unpleasant, something probably went wrong and you shouldn't eat it.  As with other cultured products, it really helps to be familiar with what smells and textures are normal and which ones indicate spoilage.  I'd highly recommend finding somebody who can help you out if you're at all unsure of your own judgments in this area.

Process each batch for about a minute, until you can see the butter forming:

Take the butter out of the food processor and do the remaining batches of cream until you have a big wad of butter.  Save the liquid that remains -- this is bona fide cultured buttermilk!  It helps to put the butter in a strainer over a bowl to save some kneading later:

Now you need to knead the butter on a clean flat surface to work out the remaining buttermilk.  I do this by hand, but there are many other ways that probably work better (note the buttermilk being squeezed out onto the cutting board):

When you're done, you should have a nice big lump of delicious butter:

I made waffles with the buttermilk, and topped them with homemade strawberry preserves from last year's strawberry crop.  Cultured butter is the ultimate!