you heard me. butter. from scratch. in my own kitchen.
and it was ridiculously, insanely, embarrassingly simple.
start with whipping cream. use the whisk on a stand mixer, the beaters on a hand mixer, or a regular old hand whisk if you are old school but really, i recommend just buying butter if you are not using a tool that is plugged in.
wrap the bowl in plastic, so you don't end up crying over spilt (or in this case, splashed) milk.
then do what everybody tells you not to do: whip the daylights out of the cream. while all that whipping is happening, put a strainer in a bowl and lay a clean dishtowel in the strainer.
the cream will go thru the whipped cream stage (some of you will be tempted to stop here and taste it--resist), then the clotted cream stage, and just when you think you are wasting your time, it will turn pebbly, and it will separate, and it will start splashing (aren't you glad you wrapped the bowl in plastic?)--then magically, before your very eyes and in less than 10 minutes, the butter will stick to your whisk and the buttermilk will settle in the bottom of the bowl.
behold: butter!
scrape the butter into the dishcloth/strainer/bowl set up, then close the towel and squeeze the butter hard, mush it up to get out all the buttermilk, then open your towel and admire your buttery accomplishment.
pour the milk into a container, you can cook with it or drink it, although for this occassion i recommend you drink something bubbly to celebrate.
at this point in the story my family and friends are thinking: ro, you've lost your mind--you don't even like butter. true dat. but i do use it in some recipes, and rudi and ella like it, and besides, the lovely ladies at little house in the suburbs told me it was possible, and frankly from now on i'm just going to do whatever they tell me to do. they haven't let me down yet.
