Homemade Butter

Gracious, I've been away from blogging for far longer than I anticipated or intended... The past week has simply flown away from me! This has been Zach's last week at home before he goes up to the mountains for a rural medicine rotation, and naturally I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, trying to make this week linger as the days slipped past...

It's been a glorious week, filled with joyous visits with family, memorable meals cooked together, wedding planning, and homemade butter. Yes, Homemade Butter. We've made significant (and wonderful) life decisions and and savored several significant meals over the past few days, but all pales in comparison to the glories of homemade butter.

Especially for one such as me who usually uses Smart Balance Light instead of actual butter, any form of butter at all tastes transcendental, but all previous butters stand aside in the company of the fluffy, creamy, pure-tasting white cloud that emerged from a simple jar of cream...

And remarkably easily, as well! Simply employ a food processor and a strainer, sip a cup of tea or coffee while watching the cream begin to transform, and then grace the resulting confection (for truly, so delicious was this butter that spreading it across toasted homemade bread truly felt like dessert) with sea salt, herbs, or, perhaps, with a swooning sigh, even some honey...

Homemade Butter

~ Pour heavy cream into a food processor (we used a pint of cream, which made about 1/2 cup of butter).
~ Turn the food processor on, and let the cream whirl.

~ First, you will reach the beautiful whipped cream stage.

~ Keep whirling until you see a decided separation between solids and liquid.
~ Gently pour the solids into a fine mesh strainer, catching the liquid whey if you so desire, then transfer the solids back to the food processor.

~ Turn the food processor back on and whir again until you have a soft ball rattling about.
~ Strain off the liquid one more time, then gently pat the butter dry with a paper towel.

~ Carefully fold in sea salt and any other flavors you might desire... For the first taste, ideally, spread across homemade bread...