You don’t have to churn the butter yourself ...
Ms. MacArthur was my kindergarten teacher. There are only two things that I remember her teaching me. The first was that if you throw building blocks at the teacher during nap time you get sent to the principal’s office and the other was how to make butter. I think that she taught me the latter to keep my hands busy and away from the building blocks. per cent
Making butter is a simple process that was discovered 5,000 years ago, 4,000 years after we started consuming non-human sourced milk. Milk was first harvested from sheep and goats which were easily domesticated. Later milk was harvested from camels which has a high fat content and when their milk was being transported on the back of animals the constant movement agitated the milk enough to cause aeration of its molecules, separating the fat from the milk creating butter.
Not long after this we figured out how to churn butter. The churning procedure to produce one pound of butter requires approximately 21 lbs (9.5 kg) or say 9 litres (2 gallons) of fresh milk by products produced from making this pound of butter include about 8 litres of skim milk which used to be discarded as waste or sold for animal feed but our fat conscious society has increased the demand for skim milk to an all-time high and has turned this watery version of milk into a valuable by product of the butter industry. per cent
Commercially produced butter is made up of 80 per cent milk fat, 16 per cent water, and 2-4 per cent milk solids or proteins known as curd. Butter comes either salted or unsalted. Salted butter has had salt added to it and makes up about 1-2 per cent of a one pound block which is the equivalent of 1-2 teaspoons. The salt has antimicrobial properties and acts as a preservative. per cent-Some still refer to unsalted butter as sweet butter and is commonly used by chefs and is typically more expensive that salted butter as the added salt is cheaper than the milk fat.
Buying butter is easier than making it yourself as I learned in kindergarten, which I forgot to mention saw Ms. MacArthur hand me a thermos full of heavy cream and have me shake it until it became butter, which we shared with the class on fresh toast.
Kawartha Dairies and Sterling Creamery are local producers of award winning butter and dairy products that are perfect for making the following recipe for scones that I learned to make while living on Galliano Island in British Columbia working at Café Chaos.
Chaotic Scones
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
6oz cold butter, cubed
1 cup buttermilk
8 tbsp. 35per cent heavy cream Method:
In a large mixing bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Using a pastry cutter, cut the chilled butter into the flour mixture until it becomes mealy in texture. Make a well in the center of the mealy flour mass and pour the buttermilk into it. Use a fork to stir the flour into the buttermilk, until it resembles a wet sticky dough. Do not over work the dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently form it into a disk that is about 2” thick. Cut the dough like a pizza into 8 equally sized wedges. Transfer the wedges onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush scones with heavy cream and sprinkle with some sugar. Bake in 350-degree convection oven for 15-20 mins. Or until golden brown and firm to the touch. Let them cool a bit before serving and make sure you have lots of butter to slather on the scones.