Daisy’s milk has changed recently. There’s more cream, and it’s stronger-flavored due to all the fresh grass (or so they say). The last time I made cheese, I lightly skimmed the 8 gallons of milk and got about three-fourths of a gallon of cream. My husband said he’d make it into butter. Which was perfect, because I have no good way of making butter. What I want is a half-gallon electric butter maker (like this) so I can plug it in and walk away, but I can’t find one ANYWHERE. Apparently they don’t make them anymore?
So anyway. I was happy my husband said he’d make the butter because then he’d understand what’s involved, and better know how to look for (or make) what I need.
I let the cream sit out all day to bring it to room temp (which makes it easier to churn), and late afternoon, my husband poured the cream into the hand-crank butter churn we’ve had for years, removed the handle, and fired up his drill.
He drilled and drilled and drilled that cream. It whipped up nice and thick but absolutely refused to split. Had we over-filled the jar? Maybe.
Two over-heated drills and forty-five minutes later, he gave up.
Hours later, before we headed up to bed, I went back to it — the cream was still a solid mass of fluff. Was it too warm? I set the churn in a bowl of ice water and churned it by hand. Nothing. My husband said we should just toss it, but it tasted delicious — creamy and thick — and looked like a block of whipped cream and cream cheese. I couldn’t bear to let it go to waste.
As a last-ditch effort, I got out my blender. I dumped in a bit of the cream fluff, turned on the blender, and, seconds later: butter!
We still don’t know what we did wrong but one thing we do know: we absolutely HATE that hand-held butter churn. Also, now my husband knows exactly what I want and why I want it. All that’s left to do is find an electric, no-slosh, hands-free, half-gallon butter churn. As of today, we’re starting to drink Emma’s milk, so he’d better problem-solve quick! THE CREAM IS COMING.
We welcome (covet!) suggestions. But first:
Methods I’ve tried: *Blender: it works, but it’s loud and messy and I have to be totally hands-on the whole time. *Kitchen Aid: it also works, but butter is sloshy (even more so than whipped cream) and, again, hands-on. *Food processor: doesn’t hold enough and my processor leaks.
Methods we’ve thought about but haven’t tried: *A dry wall mixer in a 5-gallon bucket: it would work but I’d need a couple gallons of cream (and I’ll probably be dealing with half-gallon quantities). *An electric ice cream maker with a non-frozen canister: I haven’t tried this, and while it might work, it’d definitely be too small. *A large electric ice cream churn: might work (my husband says no because it wouldn’t turn fast enough); don’t have one.
Real quick, before strawberry season is over, let’s make a pie!
The other day when I saw a photo of one of Rachel’s crumb-topped strawberry rhubarb pies, I suddenly just had to have a strawberry rhubarb pie of my own. Thankfully, I still had a couple parbaked crusts in the freezer from my pie crust videos (Part 1 is up, and Parts II and III are in production, which is just a fancy way to say “I’m editing my eyeballs out”), so I baked one up. (It was freezing cold that day, so I spent the whole afternoon running the oven — pie, sweet potatoes, a gratin, beets — in hopes of getting some feeling back into my fingers and toes. It worked, but only a little.)
I loosely based my recipe on this one, and I used this crumb topping. It worked beautifully, and now it’s all gone.
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
2-3 cups chopped rhubarb 2-3 cups strawberries (halve, or quarter, the large ones) 1 rounded tablespoon granulated tapioca ½ cup sugar 1 parbaked butter pie crust 1 recipe crumbs (see below)
Toss the rhubarb, strawberries, tapioca, and sugar together and let sit for about 30 minutes so the tapioca softens a little. Put the filling in the parbaked pie shell, top with crumbs, and bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the filling is bubbling in the center and crumbs are brown. Cool, and store at room temp; I keep our pies in the jelly cupboard. Serve with vanilla ice cream. (I like to briefly reheat my pie; my husband likes his unheated.)
for the crumbs ¾ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup brown sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 5 tablespoons butter
Cut the butter into the dry ingredients — I use my fingers — and pile on top of the pie prior to baking.
