Churn baby, churn… Or, how to make butter

This morning I realised, as I struggled to get dressed with only one working arm, I would have to make things easier on myself. If I did do a loaf as normal, even calling in help to get it out of the oven, I probably wouldn’t be able to slice it. I could gnaw at it, I supposed, but descending into savagery was a slippery slope.

I wouldn’t be able to lift the Le Creuset casserole, or any casserole, come to that. I did have a bowl of dough ready to be baked……the answer, my friends, was to cut the dough into little bits and then put the little bits into mini covered pots and make buns! It has to work, right? Reduce the time, I suppose, but it should be plain sailing.

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And what would I want on these delicious morsels of bread? Why, butter! Ages ago (and no, I don’t know when because despite Googling for quite some time for the article, I can’t find it) anyway, ages ago, The Telegraph Magazine had an article about Richard Corrigan, making butter.

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Luckily I do have my tattered bits that I ripped out of the magazine and I promise to copy out exactly the bit about making butter. How easy it would have been to have given you the link but, hey ho, one does what one can.

I first made this when I was wandering through a supermarket and saw a large pot of cream reduced for quick sale as it had to be sold that day. Never being one to miss a bargain, I thought this would be a cheap way to try out what Richard Corrigan assured me, was a quick and easy way to make butter.

How could it not be good for you? All it was was, was cream and a pinch of salt….Lamb Henry, bread and butter 016

Richard explained that one way of doing it was to put the cream into a plastic box with some marbles and shake… or you could go the easy route and whip it. Guess which way I did it? Think of the fun for the family… everyone having a go shaking the box.

First, find some marbles. These are beauties – my sister in law in Australia gave them to me, and she was sent them from her cousin in law in America. How international is that?

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Then put them in a plastic box that seals tight. You really don’t want cream going everywhere, do you?

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The put in your cream and start shaking!

This is what Richard Corrigan says

” To make butter

The simplest way to make butter is in a standing mixer, but it is also possible with any vessel that can be agitated back and forth. A Tupperware box with a couple of glass marbles is a perfect makeshift churn for a child to use.

Pour fresh double cream into a very clean mixing bowl and whisk at medium speed until thick. When it becomes stiff, slow down the mixer. The whipped cream will collapse and form into butterfat globules and the buttermilk will flood out. Strain through a sieve, reserving the buttermilk to make milkshakes or soda bread. Return the  the butter fat to the mixer and mix slowly for another 30 seconds. Fill the bowl with cold water. Wash your hands well and knead the butter, allowing the water around it to wash it. Drain off the water and repeat twice. Weigh the butter, then, if you wish to salt it, add a quarter of a teaspoon to every 115g/4oz. Pat it into a shape with wooden spatulas or butter pats, wrap in greaseproof paper and store in the fridge.”

So, you can do it in a mixer, but I have always done it in a box with the marbles. Cream in, marbles in and shake it up baby…

You can hear the change as it goes from liquid cream to whipped cream and then to a strange thickness, almost as if it is one solid mass slapping against the sides of the box. Take a look at it…

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Keep going and then all of a sudden the colour seems to change and it looks different, almost granular. It becomes a yellowy golden substance, almost cottage cheese like in texture and you can see the buttermilk is separating out and you have almost-butter!

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You need to drain the excess liquid off, so put a sieve over a jug and pour in the almost-butter.

Squish it about with a wooden spoon getting more and more of the buttermilk out of there. Then you need to rinse it with cold water. You need to get the buttermilk out, leaving only the butterfat. If you don’t then it will go off sooner, though I have to say, there’s never been any left lying around to go rancid in this house.

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At this point I add some salt and mix it in, giving it a good slapping. The first few times I just used a wooden spatula and that worked brilliantly but The Bear found some wooden butter pats at an antique place at some ridiculously low price (maybe £3?) and bought them for me. You can slap the butter from both sides then. They aren’t essential at all unless you are looking at it from a style point of view. Just whack it with whatever you have. More of the buttermilk will come out and what is left looks just like…… butter!

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There you go, rough and ready, but that is undeniably butter. I usually make it look a lot better but as I keep telling you, I only have one working arm, so what do you expect? But if I can do that in under half an hour? What could you do?

Think of the fun if you have children to entertain – you can make bread and they can be put to forced labour shaking a plastic box filled with cream and a couple of marbles.

I have chopped herbs into it before and even mixed in truffle oil to make gorgeous flavoured butters….You can freeze it too, all you do is  make sausages of the  butter and wrap it in cling film and then freeze it, ready for when you need it.

So now I have butter, ready for my buns. I told you I  had made the dough as normal and then I put it into heated mini Le Creuset pots….

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Lamb Henry, bread and butter 019The oven was hot and in they went. There they stayed for 30 minutes, with their lids on and then another 15 minutes to brown… what little beauties they are? Don’t they deserve the beautiful butter?

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There you go. Wonderful home made bread and butter.

Easy, isn’t it? I reckon it would be easier still if you did what Richard said and used a food mixer……

No Knead Bread and the one armed cook

One of my favourite things is making bread. I love the smell of it as it bakes and the

way the smell filters everywhere.

It’s when I bake bread that I feel that I am doing a good job of feeding the Bear.

Sometimes, it is just what I need to do to make up for any housewifely transgressions.

I’m a better baker than I am a housewife and he forgets my faults when he sees

a lovely fresh loaf.

I’d seen various people talk about The No-Knead Bread,  by Jim Lahey at the

Sullivan Street Bakery  in New York

 and found links to it in the New York Times by Mark Bittman – and thought

that I would give it a go.

Read those articles. Trust me, it works.

And it works well enough that we prefer it to any other bread we can buy here.

The plus point is that there is no kneading. A good enough reason in itself to

try it, but it will be especially useful this week.

Tomorrow I will be in hospital having an operation on my arm to repair a

damaged tendon and I will be unable to do anything much with it for some time.

I have a feeling things might get tricky……

Anyway, back to the bread. It takes time to do – 12 – 18 hours but the thing is,

it isn’t 12 -18 hours of work.

The yeast does the work…. very slowly. All you have to do is mix the dry

ingredients together, add water and then leave till the next day.

Then stick it in the oven. How easy is that?

Right then

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Get some decent bread flour

and some yeast

and some salt.

The recipe  uses American cups – most of us have cup measures in the house,

failing that, remember that American measures are based on volume,

not weight, so if you use, say a teacup,

remember to use the same measure throughout.

 Get a big bowl and measure into it 3 cups of the bread flour.

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Sprinkle over that a quarter teaspoon of dried yeast and

one and a half teaspoons of salt.

Stir them all together.

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See, easy so far, eh?

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Then add one and a half cups of water

(the original recipe says one and five eighths,

so put an extra spoonful in)

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Stir it together

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And then it looks like this. Rough and ready. Lumpy, even.

But it doesn’t matter!

You don’t have anything more to do other than cover it in cling film

and leave it to one side for 12 -18 hours or so.

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Because you use so little yeast it is very easy to digest –

none of this partially fermented stuff you get in shops.

This is a long slow rise……..

The next day, flour a board thoroughly and take a look  at your bowl.

The dough seems impossibly wet  and

people have been known to feel slightly panicked at this stage…

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That can’t be right, you are thinking……

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Look at it pulling… but is IS right. See those bubbles,

stretching and tearing?

They are going to transform this wet and sticky lump of dough into

the most delicious bread…

You have to tear it out of the bowl

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It is incredibly wet and sticky but don’t worry about that,

it is just how it should be.

Roll the messy lump in the flour and it magically

transforms itself into this lovely smooth ball.

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 Just roll… no kneading…..leave it for ten minutes or so,

covered in the clingfilm you took off the bowl and then…

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….dust a tea towel with flour, or, as I am using here, cornmeal (fine ground polenta)

I like cornmeal because it does give a light crunchiness to the crust and also

 because it looks so very pretty! 

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t got any, just use flour.

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See, a good dusting of whatever you are using and then wrap it

lightly in the tea towel

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Then just leave it for two hours to finish rising gently.

After one and a half hours, turn your oven on to just over 200 degrees C/ 392 degrees F

and put in your lidded casserole. You need a lid because it traps the steam

and helps turn the crust into the most delicious chewy gorgeousness…

and you need to get your pot hot. Very hot.

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Then, using oven gloves, (that pot will sizzle your fingers otherwise) get the pot out of the oven

and take the lid off…..then chuck in the dough.

See?

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Still no kneading. Give the casserole a shake to settle the dough,

then put the lid back on and put it in the oven for 30 minutes.

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After half an hour, take the lid off and just look at that……

Then, back in the oven to finish off and get brown.

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And there you have it. Get it out of the oven  and leave it to cool.

I know that is hard because it really does smell gorgeous but

cooling is essential. 

That truly is the most delicious bread – all you have to do is give it time to make

itself. Even a one armed cook could make that.

Well, if a one armed cook had someone to get the pot out of the oven, that is.