Rainy afternoons, with the children at home after a long day at school, eh? They say they are hungry. They say they want sausages (no, we do not eat sausages that often; they’re just featuring a bit on my blog of late), with bread and butter. And sauce.

‘You want butter on your bread?’ I asked.
‘Yes please, mother dearest, we would love some butter on our bread,’ answered the children (well, not exactly like that).
‘Well, if you want butter you’re going to have to make it yourself,’ I said, to which I was met with questioning faces.
‘You can make butter?’ asked the younger one of the two (Matthew).
‘Yes, of course you can.’
‘How?’

And here, in a perfect world, I would send my little darlings out to the paddock to collect Daisy the cow, and teach them how to milk her and then skim the fresh cream from the fresh milk… So imagine that part is done, and excuse me while I fetch a tub of thickened cream from the fridge…

I asked Georgia to fetch a jar from the growing pile of glass jars in the pantry. She said ‘no,’ so I did it myself. I poured in some cream, until the jar was half full (or half empty, if you’re feeling a tad gloomy).

I demonstrated shaking the glass jar. We talked about the sounds it made. At first it sounded sloppy. That’s when it was creamy. Then it sounded a bit rocky. That was when the cream was being whipped a lot, becoming hardened.

Then it started to sound bit rocky. We were looking for the buttermilk as well, which we thought would sound a bit slushy. And when that happened:

With the formation of butter and buttermilk pretty obvious, we strained off the liquid and scooped out the solids. We put each into a little bowl:

Matty really wanted to know what we do with the milk. It would be a bit salty and buttery to drink alone. I said it’d be perfect for scones, but when Georgia asked if we could make scones I said no. We decided to freeze the buttermilk for next time we make scones. There’d be about 100ml.

All the children really enjoyed fresh butter on their bread!

Lucky lady I am, with my trio of happiness :)