Cultured Butter & Buttermilk
Yes - buying butter at the supermarket is cheaper… way cheaper. But, every once in a while we want cultured (or fermented) butter and that’s more expensive. That’s when making your own starts to make sense, and you get the added bonus of buttermilk at the same time.
A note on the ingredients; you need to find 35% cream that hasn’t undergone the UHT pasturisation process. UHT changes the structure of the cream which they then compensate with a raft of additives. This makes it harder to ferment and churn. You also need to find unflavoured kefir that hasn’t been pasturised, so it still has live bacteria cultures.
Ingredients:
4 cups (1L) 35% cream
3 Tbsp (50 mL approx.) unflavoured kefir
Method:
Stir together the cream and kefir in glass container.
Cover with cheese cloth.
Leave on the kitchen counter out of direct sunlight for 3-4 days.
Pour into a stand mixer with the whisk attachment and whisk on high / medium high until butter forms and separates from the buttermilk.
Strain off buttermilk and save in the fridge for other uses.
Work the butter / knead the butter with wooden spatula’s, butter paddles, or your hands to squeeze out as much residual buttermilk as possible.
Pour off this squeezed out buttermilk - but don’t save it.
During this process rinse with clean cold water.
Shape and refrigerate the butter.
You’ll get:
2 cups (500 mL) buttermilk
11.5 ounces (325g) butter
