Isn't Butter Divinity?

    One of my favorite movies is Little Women. I love it when they wake up on Christmas morning to have a special breakfast and Amy says " Butter! Oh isn't butter divinity? Oh, God thank you for this breakfast." it is one of my favorite lines. I do love me some butter.
  I had a great trip to the city this weekend, but when I came home I had very little butter and some heavy cream that is about to go bad. So, I decided to try my hand at making butter. It was easier than I thought it would be and I am quite pleased with the outcome.
A few things to note before you get started:
    -Be patient
    -Salt is a personal addition. Add as much as you like or as little as you like.
    -This is simple, but it will take constant attention while you are making it.
    -You will need about twice as much cream as you want butter. For example if you want a cup of butter you will need at least two cups of cream.
    -You will need a large bowl, heavy cream, salt, and a hand mixer.

You are going to start out with the amount of cream you want. I used 4 cups because I had a lot of cream to use up (don't you love the half gallon of cream from Costco during the holidays?)

 This is how the cream will start out looking. You will need a hand mixer to whip it up.

 I added salt to my cream early in the mixing process. Add as much as you like. I used a couple handfuls like this in mine and probably should have used more to make it more like store bought butter.

 Start whipping. It will go through many stages before you are done.

 Then you will start to see the moisture separate to the bottom. You want to pour the "buttermilk" off and keep whipping and pouring off until you aren't seeing a pool at the bottom. You can use the buttermilk like you would store bought buttermilk.

 Then you want to smash the butter with a spoon to get excess moisture out and pour it off.

 Then you want to pour about a 1/2 cup of ice water in and smash the butter and water along the edge of the bowl. This is called "washing" it keeps the butter from spoiling. Do this about 3 times and pour off excess liquid.

 Then shape your butter how ever you want.

 I put a butter knife next to the butter so you could get an idea of how big it is.

Then you can slather it on a little no knead bread and enjoy. This is REAL butter. You can use it in baking too. Use organic cream for an Eco and body friendly option.


Butter
     Ingredients

                   Heavy Cream
                   Salt

1.Pour desired amount of cream in a bowl. Add as much salt as you deem necessary.

2.Mix with hand mixer on medium speed. Keep doing this until your cream has thickened. It will start to be waxy and look like butter.

3. When it starts to make a watery pool at the bottom pour out liquid and continue until it isn't making a substantial pool at the bottom.

4. Start pressing butter against the sides of your bowl to get excess moisture out. Keep doing this until there isn't any.

5.Add a 1/2 cup of ice water to your butter and press against the sides of the bowl. Pour water out and repeat until the water isn't very cloudy when you pour it out (about 2-3 times).

6. Shape your butter into whatever shape you like. Wrap in parchment paper and then put in a  plastic bag or plastic wrap. Will last 1 month in refrigerator or 6 months in the freezer.