MONITOR:THE SLAPPING WAS a welcome sound. Gun-like in its repetitiveness. My grandmother didn't hold back, her determination never in doubt, methodical, constant and focused. Churning butter is not for the fainthearted. At least it wasn't then. The vessel was made from wood; the health police would have a field day. Chunky and old-fashioned, it was kept scrupulously clean.
But what interested me was the contents, because not long after, the butter would be fashioned into balls, the ridged sides of the freshly-made pats creating patterns. Tea could not come soon enough, and with the butter there would be scones and jam, a pot of loose-leaf tea and home-made lemonade.
In these frugal times baking is on the increase. And if baking, why not butter-making? No churn? A cake-mixer is just as suitable and not quite as hard work. And summer is here, traditionally the time for butter-making, when the fat content of milk is at its peak.
You need a cream with enough butterfat content to whisk, so use whipping or double cream rather than single. Let it come to room temperature and whisk as you would normally. You’ll need half a litre. Finding good cream is not as easy as it once was. My grandmother kept two cows on her 17 hectares and would skim the cream off fresh milk in the scullery. The likes of Glenillen produce good cream, in addition to delicious yoghurt and cheesecakes. If you want flavour in your butter, you need to find a producer like this; most industrial cream has little taste.
As you over-whisk for seven or eight minutes, the fat in the cream will start to form globules as it breaks down and these cling to the whisk, leaving a milky liquid behind. Collect the butter into a fine sieve and pour the liquid through the sieve so that all the butter collects in it. The liquid is buttermilk, which you can drink, or make into soda bread or scones, just in time for tea. Rinse the butter well under cold water. The objective now is to get rid of any excess buttermilk, as it is this which turns the butter rancid, a taste popular in parts of the world – I was once given it in tea. Rinse until the water runs clear, moulding the butter with your hands as you go.
You then need to squeeze the butter hard to get rid of any excess whey and water. Place it on a work surface and knead to banish the final remnants. Now you can decide whether you want salt. About five grammes will be sufficient for this quantity of cream, but obviously it depends on your taste. Knead the salt in and fashion your butter into a block or log and wrap in greaseproof paper. Butter pats turn up in junk shops quite a bit, if you fancy butter balls, or you can use two pieces of clean wood.
As to whether you should add salt or not, to my mind there really isn’t any question. The salt attracts whatever water is left in the butter and when you spread it on toast, the tiny, salty water globules burst, which gives the butter a really interesting flavour and means your breakfast is not all homogenised into one taste, which is what happens with commercial butter. It also makes me remember my grandmother and brings back the sound of butter churning which, in this mad world, seems a very good thing.