Bread and Butter

My oldest daughter is in the first grade. Just before Thanksgiving, their school celebrated "Colonial Days". I will have a post about her costume soon, but one of the activities the students enjoyed was making their own butter. 

In a small baby food jar, the teacher poured "heavy whipping cream", then sealed the jar and had the students begin to shake it. In about thirty minutes, the white cream became whipped cream, then separated into a watery "buttermilk" and a yellow butter. The sides of the jar became perfectly clear and you could see the lump of butter inside.

When we sampled the butter at home, it was unsalted, of course, but much sweeter and creamier than the butter we purchase at the store.

I thought, why can't I try that? We consume almost a pound of butter weekly between the morning meals and the other cooking I do.

I had a pint jar (the quart jar was intimidating and I didn't know how long the shaking process would be), with fresh canning lids and rings, so I filled it 3/4 with heavy whipping cream and began to shake it vigorously.

I'll be honest, the kids were not in bed yet, and I became distracted at some point, setting the jar on the counter. When they were in bed (maximum distraction time was twenty minutes), I found the jar and went to task once more. So, I cannot tell you exactly how long this took me, but the temperature rising may have made the separation easier.

The "buttermilk" did not taste of butter, but of thin cream, so I used it in my coffee the next few mornings. I was surprised that rather than one large lump, I had many small dollops or pats of butter in my batches. (Yes, it was good enough to keep doing, and I had purchased a half-GALLON of whipping cream for this purpose)

My own butter was so delicious, I thought I'd make some fresh bread to go along with it. After all, said first-grader is in love with peanut butter and honey and we go through loaves of bread in a rapid manner!

I used King Arthur's Flour, followed their recipe to the letter for sandwich bread, and began the task.

This was not an easy task, because I chose to bake bread in the middle of November, when my house is not exactly warm. Our town is 4,000 feet above sea level, but we had our woodstove insert burning nicely and it made a good radiant source for the yeast to work.

Here is a photo of the finished sandwich bread:

Though the bread was moist and delicious, I believe I will have to adjust my ratios for altitude next time. It was not as held-together as I needed to be durable for my daughter's sandwiches. It fell apart more like a moist dessert bread.

Remember, anything worth doing is worth trying.
~Tammy