Just wondering if anyone knows where I can buy homemade butter on PEI. Thanks!

Not sure who sells it but it's pretty easy to make yourself.

I was wondering the same, now I would love to try making it myself... any help would be great..

You mean help making it?
You can do it with commercial cream or if you have a friend with dairy cattle it's even better if they will give you some fresh milk that you can let separate.

As a kid we used to put about a quart of cream in a gallon bottle and then just shake it.
If I remember well it takes between 8-12 minutes of shaking. The butter will separate out in lumps and you can strain it off.
After that you can "knead" it in cold water to get rid of some of the residual whey and then add some salt if you like.

You can also do this with a whip attachment if you have a Kitchen Aid type mixer.
It takes about 5-6 minutes. First you will have whipped cream and then it will start to coagulate. You have to watch closely at this point because it goes pretty quickly and you could end up with a mess on your hands if you don't adjust the speed of your mixer.

Save the leftover liquid. I can be made into buttermilk or is a good substitute for water or milk in bread making.

I wonder if you could use it for pancakes too.

Absolutely. The leftover whey is good for pretty much any baking etc.

Perfect fit. I love butter on my homemade pancakes. And I miss homemade butter...

Just use regular "whipping cream"? I'd love to try this!

Regular whipping cream. 32-34% from ADL or Perfection.
Don't use Farmers. Too many chemicals and stabalizers.

Good to know.....thanks!

Thanks Raiders, you mentioned buttermilk , how u go bout doin that?? I like to use buttermilk when baking...

I've never done it myself.
My Father used to get the "buttermilk" from the old Wiltshire Dairy.
He would leave it in a gallon plastic jug near the stove and let it ferment for a few days then refrigerate it for a day.

I'm sure in this day and age the food police would come down on you for such a technique.
He also used to "pickle" beef in a ceramic jar with salt and spices in the pantry.
Odd how none of us ever got sick.

The cream has to sour a bit before you start - so I would be a bit skeptical about using store whipped cream - mainly because milk and cream no longer seems to sour anymore.

Your best bet if you can find a farmer willing to break the law is to either buy natural cream or whole milk and wait for the cream to rise.

Also remember that homemade butter is white - not yellow. This may throw off some people - especially kids.

Add a little salt when you are done the kneading - adds flavor.

Phil

Actually it doesn't need to sour. Not to get the actual butter.
You may want to age it a little if you want to simulate the butter of old because that's what they did with older cream.

The color will be similar to commercial butter. Carotene is natural in cream and that's what causes it to look a little yellow. It's not even legal in most places to add color to butter.

Salt is definitely a must for me. Good for flavour and it also makes the butter last longer.

Well let me be clearer - it has to be at room temp for a few days to get the best results.

And if you have ever left store milk or cream out for a few days - then you know that it does not sour the same way natural milk and cream does.

As for pickling beef - or anything else for that matter - people should be boning up on this practice again. Food prices are about to take a huge leap - and the more preserves you have set up in your cool basement - the better off you will be.

I can remember times when it was unsafe to walk thru the kitchen since everything in sight was going into the pickle pot.

Mom had an 8 gallon stone butter churn she would put her dill pickles down in. They were not jarred until the mold was at least an inch high on the brine. The mold was carefully removed - most of the brine poured away - new brine made and added to the old and then added to the jars.

Dad would use the same churn in the winter to make his beer. (after thoroughly sterilizing the churn). When the raisins finally disappeared from the top of the beer - it was bottled.

Pickled pork feet - probably the most disgusting dish ever invented - well maybe head cheese is worse - done in 5 gallon pails they had got from restaurants.

Stewed and jarred wild rabbit. So wonderful on a hot summer day.

Still - there is nothing more satisfying then pulling a big bag of strawberries out of the freezer in a Jan. storm and making jam on the wood stove.

Phil

Hi,

Making butter is pretty easy. I used to use a blender for it.

Fill the container 1/2 full of cream. Start the machine at slow, and increase gradually to medium (you don't want to send the liquid flying up with a fast start You will see clearly enough when the butter forms ... it will be globs in milk that loses its whiteness. Once it starts to form, it progresses quickly, so make your best guess as to when to stop. What you want to see is large fat blobs, not small lumps, swirling in watery-looking milk. (I don't think the "skim" milk will have a blue tinge ... that is what milk looks like after the cream has been separated. It has been a while since I did this.)

Stop the machine and pour off the liquid (you can use it anywhere you would use low-fat milk.) Half fill the machine with very cold water, on top of the butter, and run the machine briefly. Repeat this rinsing until the water pours off clear.

Work the butter to remove the excess water. You want to keep things as cold as you can while doing this, to keep the butter from softening into grease. One way is to place the butter on a cutting board, supported on one edge to give you a bit of a slope. Then spread the butter thickly over the board, and run the back of a spoon through the butter, making "tracks" or channels down which the water will run. If the butter starts to soften (it IS August), stick the whole shebang in the fridge for a bit, then carry on.

When most of the water seems to be out, sprinkle on some table salt and work it in to the butter. Of course you can leave it unsalted if you prefer, but do at least try it with some salt, so you can compare the flavour difference for yourself. Try salting at the rate of 1 tsp salt per pound of butter. (A pound is 2 cups of butter, so just guess at how much you have, or measure how much thin milk you poured off and calculate what was left from however much you started with.)

If you would like to have the taste of "cultured" butter, ie that tastes more like old-fashioned butter, add some commercial buttermilk to your heavy cream at the beginning of the process. Maybe about 1/5 the volume of cream. After you pour off the thin milk, leave it to sit overnight, and you will have buttermilk, that you can use in any way that you normally use commercial buttermilk. (Of course, you can culture your own buttermilk, without the butter-making process, by adding a small amount of the commercial buttermilk to ordinary milk, and letting it sit at warm room temp for a few hours to a day. It works with anything from skim to whole milk.)

Have fun!

Thank you for all the great information!