Ft Tabers Christian Academy (what we call our family homeschool) kicked off in full swing last week with all things new and exciting. It’s hard to believe I have a sophomore in high school, two 8th graders, a 6th grader, and a 2nd grader. I have THREE KIDS in middle school. Pray for me.
But all kidding aside, we had a great first week – even with an extra kid in the house since we were watching a sweet little friend of my youngest’s while her parents were out of town.
The highlight of the week was making homemade butter during our review of life in Colonial America.
Making homemade butter is fun, easy, and oh so yummy. Here’s how we did it.
1. Fill a mason jar 1/2 – 3/4 full with heavy cream. I also suggest throwing in a pinch of salt. We made a batch of salted and a batch of unsalted. The salted butter tastes better.
If you have a couple of marbles, or an agitator like this one which is used in health shakes, you can throw it in to speed up the process, but that’s totally optional. If you DO add an agitator, you’ll have to dig it out of your butter later.
2. Start shaking your jar of cream. Shake it up and down. Shake it sideways. Shake it in your right hand. Shake it in your left hand. Pass it around the table so everyone gets to shake it. Just keep shaking. Eventually, it’ll look kinda like this.
3. Once it’s real thick, you’ll still hear a little sloshing around. Feel free to drain off some of the liquid. That’s buttermilk. Feel free to save it for baking, if you’re into that sort of thing. But you have to use it fairly soon ’cause it won’t stay fresh very long.
4. Continue shaking until you have a solid lump of butter. Ours was extremely soft and delightfully creamy.
5. I couldn’t help but make some homemade Amish Cinnamon Bread to slather it on. The kids approved and we all decided that while it’s cheaper and easier to grab a tub of Country Crock at Walmart, nothing beats the taste of real, homemade butter.
