Our household went off margarine in August 2012. We had been thinking about it, so when a visiting cousin mentioned the canola processing plants in her area, commenting that one whiff would make us swear off marg forever, I reached my own personal tipping point. Since I am the grocery shopper, our house went margarine-free.
There isn’t much price difference between the two any more. That had been my main reason for buying marg over the years. But these days I can buy a pound of butter for $3.50 at my local big box store. A 2 lb tub of Becel is $6.49. Some say that butter is bad for you, but I would much rather consume butter than a tub of chemically-manipulated faux butter. Hell, it’s all bad for you…everything in moderation.
I have been experimenting lately with making my own butter. But no laborious churning process for me. It’s the 21st century. I can make butter in literally thirty seconds.
I picked up a half pint of whipping cream for under $2 last week, on clearance, best before Oct 28 – in two days time. It didn’t get used for pasta sauce, cream soup or dessert topping, so last night (Nov 2), I took it out of the fridge and set it on the counter overnight to bring it up to room temp, and maybe even get a little fermentation started.
This morning I dumped it into my mini food processor, half at a time, and whipped it until it “broke”, which took less than 30 seconds. That’s what happens if you whip cream past the point of whipped cream. It separates into butter and buttermilk; and rather suddenly too.
Once it breaks, you pour off the buttermilk (mmmmm pancakes), scoop the butter into a bowl with your spatula and rinse it under cold water, squishing it in on itself until the water runs clear. Then pour off the water, squish it some more until it stops shedding water, mix in a little salt if you choose (I like pink salt) and refrigerate or freeze.
Today, I got 194 grams of sweet delicious butter – almost half a pound – from my expired whipping cream. Isn’t that cool?!?
