We've just made some butter!

[Mercy]

Haven't tasted it yet as it's cooling down in the fridge.

So if you need to keep the kids occupied for half an hour here's how to make butter

Tip: make sure the lid is screwed on as tightly as possible (a plastic one is probably better than a metal one)

great idea. Saw it on Barney the Dinosaur once () and wasn't entirely convinced. by your recommendation I may have a go with DD1...

Gosh that looks fun!

I wasn't convinced it was going to work either but after 15/20 minutes of shaking the jar it just suddenly turned into butter!

I remember doing this myself when about 4 & at playgroup - is a memory that had stayed with me for ever (although it might have been the baby lambs that came in on the same day..)
Is a lovely idea to do with LO's

Tip no2: it's better to use a wooden spoon to press out the remaining buttermilk as squeezing it was very messy!

I remember doing that when I was little, but we used the cream from the top of a bottle of full fat milk instead of double cream.

I grew up on a dairy farm and my mum always made butter, yoghurt, etc. It was delicious but whenever we saw her walking around with her tupperware we tried to hide because we knew she'd make us have turns shaking it (it kills your arm after a while!). Top tip - try get one of those tupperware containers with the attachment at the top (you put in on top of the container before you put the lid - in a star shape iykwim) - it made the shaking time a bit less...

There must be ways to lessen the labour, in these days of household gadgetry....

For instance, could you make a bread machine do the churning? Or strap it to your salad spinner and make it go round and round?

So how much butter do you get from how much cream?

we used to do this as kids - I LOVED it.

There is a way - make the DC do it

Message withdrawn

Not much iirc! About a litre of cream used to make a tiny little container full (probably about 300ml) - but then we used cream from the top of the milk tank at the dairy so maybe the cream from teh shops is more "thick". Also, if you have dogs, give them the leftover buttermilk to drink (ours loved it)

My mum didn't have time to make muffins etc, she was too busy making butter, yoghurt, mulberry jam, lemon curd, strawberry jam, aubergine pate, looking after the chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs, etc (such an earth mother), haha

Kathy, I used 150ml tub of double cream which produced approx 30g of butter/ 1.5" cube)

Thank you Mercy

oh this is in fact an interesting thread. I was fearing a mew mnet topic in the making - Butter Makers to go along with Chicken Keepers

LOL pointdog!

mmmmmmm, butter chicken, now there's an idea.