Bread making
- Thread starter Doc Dan
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I don't have a food processor any longer. My wife told me that. Can I use a blender?
One way to find out. You'll probably get whipped cream, so lay in a bunch of fresh strawberries and some shaved chocolate. She'll forgive you.
Actually -- not having tried it myself mind you! -- it'll likely work. The goal in churning butter is kinda like a little kid starting an avalanche in the movies by rolling a snowball downhill. The idea is to smack the little globs of butterfat together until they start to stick and collect even more globs. Even seen a butter churn in a museum? Either the old colonial up-and-down dasher type or the hand-cranked paddles? They don't move all that fast.
Also, your cream should be room temperature, as should the equipment. Chilling the cream and freezing the implements is for making whipped cream. You want the cream to be nice and liquid and the fat nice and soft so it gathers effectively. With a blender I'd use the slowest setting, and watch to see that the cream circulates well. If it's only churning on the bottom as it thickens, you should stir it a bit to keep it mixed so it all churns evenly.
I've used a small cranked churn; in fact we still have it. Kilner is the brand, I think. It's "OK" for butter, but you'll only do a pint at a time. You'll crank and crank and start to question your sanity and suddenly wham the butter gathers and it's quite hard to crank. That's why I use the KitchenAid mixer.
Plus with the KitchenAid I can process half a gallon of cream and it doesn't take me four batches in the churn to do it.O.H.
Success!
Ended up with 175g of butter from a pint of 35% whip cream. Can’t wait for breakfast!
Once the butter was washed, I loosely wrapped it in parchment paper (was out of wax paper) and using two rigid spatulas fashioned it into a brick. I then unwrapped it and placed it in the butter dish.
It is much creamier than store-bought but I don’t think I added enough salt…we will see tomorrow.
Things I learned from the first trial:
-the #2 speed on the on the Kitchenaid mixer is not enough. I wanted to keep the mess down but after 15 minutes turned it up to #4 as O.H. suggested and butter appeared soon after.
-if you have a Kitchenaid pour shield, use it. Really helps contain mess.
Ended up with 175g of butter from a pint of 35% whip cream. Can’t wait for breakfast!
Once the butter was washed, I loosely wrapped it in parchment paper (was out of wax paper) and using two rigid spatulas fashioned it into a brick. I then unwrapped it and placed it in the butter dish.
It is much creamier than store-bought but I don’t think I added enough salt…we will see tomorrow.
Things I learned from the first trial:
-the #2 speed on the on the Kitchenaid mixer is not enough. I wanted to keep the mess down but after 15 minutes turned it up to #4 as O.H. suggested and butter appeared soon after.
-if you have a Kitchenaid pour shield, use it. Really helps contain mess.
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- #205
I have a manual hand mixer, too. Will that work?One way to find out. You'll probably get whipped cream, so lay in a bunch of fresh strawberries and some shaved chocolate. She'll forgive you.
Actually -- not having tried it myself mind you! -- it'll likely work. The goal in churning butter is kinda like a little kid starting an avalanche in the movies by rolling a snowball downhill. The idea is to smack the little globs of butterfat together until they start to stick and collect even more globs. Even seen a butter churn in a museum? Either the old colonial up-and-down dasher type or the hand-cranked paddles? They don't move all that fast.
Also, your cream should be room temperature, as should the equipment. Chilling the cream and freezing the implements is for making whipped cream. You want the cream to be nice and liquid and the fat nice and soft so it gathers effectively. With a blender I'd use the slowest setting, and watch to see that the cream circulates well. If it's only churning on the bottom as it thickens, you should stir it a bit to keep it mixed so it all churns evenly.
I've used a small cranked churn; in fact we still have it. Kilner is the brand, I think. It's "OK" for butter, but you'll only do a pint at a time. You'll crank and crank and start to question your sanity and suddenly wham the butter gathers and it's quite hard to crank. That's why I use the KitchenAid mixer.
O.H.
Short answer: not real well. They're good for whipping cream, but not so much for making butter. What happens right at the end, as the butter is beginning to gather is that things get pretty stiff. At that point you'll either want Reddy Kilowatt on the job or else something with a little lower "gear ratio" to make the turning easier.
I'm not sure it's the only dedicated butter churn still on the market, but Kilner made the one I have. It's not all that difficult to use, but one caution is that it'll only churn a pint at a time. You need room for splashing the cream around, which is what makes the fat globules start to stick together.
It was more the issue of capacity than the issue of using my own muscles that made me switch to using the KitchenAid. Plus the KitchenAid is easier to clean.
I'm not seeing all the factors, but the time to churn can be as short as 3 minutes, or if something didn't work up right in the culturing I've had it take up to 10 minutes or so for the cream to "break" and start gathering butter. I seem to average around 5 minutes. Then a few minutes of draining off the buttermilk and squishing the butter around to press out more liquid, then add a bit of salt and mix that in, pack into my butter mould and chill it. With setup and cleanup making butter is a relaxed half-hour.
O.H.
I've been doing Keto for over a year. There are certain things I miss: bread, pizza, pasta.
Anyone make Keto friendly homemade bread? I would love to try that.
This is the best keto bread I have found in any of my local grocery stores. Sola. They made several different types, all are pretty good.
Anyone make Keto friendly homemade bread? I would love to try that.
This is the best keto bread I have found in any of my local grocery stores. Sola. They made several different types, all are pretty good.
Hooray! Making your own butter will tend to disenchant you with the bland yellow fat you've been buying.
Plus you get value-added buttermilk. Sometimes I make butter just to get fresh buttermilk.I start out on 4, then after a while when the cream gets "rocky" and starts to "break" I watch to see when it starts spitting a little whey out of the bowl. Then I turn it down to 3, then 2, then 1. At that point it's ready to pour off the bulk of the buttermilk, then I run it a minute or so at 2 just to work the butter a little. After that I work the butter with a spatula.
O.H.
Hooray! Making your own butter will tend to disenchant you with the bland yellow fat you've been buying.
I start out on 4, then after a while when the cream gets "rocky" and starts to "break" I watch to see when it starts spitting a little whey out of the bowl. Then I turn it down to 3, then 2, then 1. At that point it's ready to pour off the bulk of the buttermilk, then I run it a minute or so at 2 just to work the butter a little. After that I work the butter with a spatula.
O.H.
I found my butter kinda hard, googling made me discover that it was possibly due to my cream being too cold…which is in turn why it took so long to turn to butter. Guilty as charged, I used cream straight from the fridge.
Apparently 15C (60F) should be what to aim for. Colder will make harder butter, warmer will make moister butter. Does that sound about right O.H.?
I saw a documentary on the Mennonites and kids were given task to shake a mason jar of cream till it turned to butter. Don’t know if it was a punishment for something but it did work.
Mabey take a mason jar of cream to the paint store and ask them to put it in their shaker
Yes. Leaving it on the counter for two days to culture is warmer than that, and I sometimes like to cool things a little before churning. In the warmer months I'll usually only culture for one day, plus I'll often add a bit more yogurt or skyr to it in the beginning to put more active culture in. Getting the fermentation going faster than the spoilage bacteria can ramp up is the goal.
O.H.
I was in charge of making bread for Easter dinner today. Ten Portuguese buns and four baguettes. I wish I could make longer baguettes but my baking stone is only so big…
Just made my first cultured butter.
Added some plain Balkan style yogurt (6% fat) to whip cream. Placed in the oven with the light on for 24 hours (25C-29C), it thickened up nicely but wasn’t very tangy. Left it there for another 24 hours and it was much tangier. I set it outside (colder than the fridge) for a few hours till its temperature fell down to 15C, then I whipped it as before.
The end result is a much softer* and creamier butter but the taste was not that much different than the first one I made with cream only. Perhaps different yogurt cultures would yield different results. And perhaps the four or five added whip cream ingredients interfered with the process.
I’ll try going to health food stores to find cream that is 100% milk next time.
*…might also be because I kneaded it less this time during the rinsing process
