Making butter

I had a go at this lest week because there was some cream left over from the party and I have to say it was easy, quick and made great butter.
I used Thermione but you don't have to, you could use any food mixer, including a hand held electric whisk.  You could use a balloon whisk but I think that would take an awfully long time.

I just tipped the rest of the cream into Thermione and beat it at around speed 6 to 8 until I could hear a slooshing sound that meant that the fat had separated from the buttermilk.
I then used a sieve to separate the liquid from the solid but next time I will use a muslin as shown by Mary Barry in Bake Off Master Class this week.
I was very, very careful to get every bit of buttermilk out of the butter.  I had it in my head that there would be loads of liquid and was surprised how little there was.
The buttermilk went into a little pot and I used it in my bread making yesterday.
Then I washed the butter, just in water and, again squeezed all the water out.  I did this about three times - I think perhaps it wasn't necessary to wash it so many times.
I then salted the butter (it didn't need much) by puitting the butter in a bowl, sprinkling over a little salt and mixing it in well, tasting to check it was OK before making a cylinder of it and wrapping it in greaseproof paper, twisting the ends to seal it.

I think this might be something I will do on a regular basis and if double cream is reduced in price, I could make more and freeze some.  Ditto with the buttermilk that comes out.  When I made some wholemeal and oat rolls yesterday I added the butterlink in lieu of some of the water and I've never had a wholemeal dough rise so well or so quickly and the results are delicious.

Here's the video clip showing Mary making butter, in case you didn't see it.  On my screen it is on the top line, second one from the left.  I've taken you to this page because there might be some other clips that interest you too.  :-)