Starters and Nibbles

Spicy Crock-Pot Apple Butter – Serve with cheddar or brie (or any cheese that is cheddar-or-brie-like) and crackers. Can be made several days in advance. Uses the crock-pot, which frees up your stovetop and oven. Would also be a nice sauce with turkey. And a nice host(-ess) gift.

Spicy Crock-Pot Apple Butter

Chicken Liver Mousse – Quick and easy to make. Can be made several days in advance. Serve with toast squares, crackers, or sliced baguette.

Chicken Liver Mousse on a crunchy little toast square

Manchego Cheese, Quince, and Walnut Crostini – Make the quince jam (or buy it) in advance. Toast the bread in advance. Easy to assemble.

Manchego, Quince, and Walnut Crostini

First Course

Easy Golden Beet Soup with Buttery Croutons - Serve as a first course. Beets can be roasted several days in advance. Soup can be made and refrigerated 1-2 days in advance (without the croutons, of course). Swirl a bit of heavy cream or yogurt on top for an elegant little touch. When I make a large meal like Thanksgiving dinner, I serve creamy soups like this in teacups – it’s just the right amount of soup so your guests aren’t stuffed before the main course.

Golden Beet Soup with Buttery Croutons

Quick Breads

Bacon Muffins – quick and easy to bake. Can be made 1 day in advance.

Bacon Muffins

Irish Soda Bread with Brown Butter, Rosemary, and Black Pepper – Quickbread (no yeast) – takes only a few minutes to mix. Can be made 1-2 days in advance.

Irish Soda Bread with Brown Butter, Rosemary, and Black Pepper

Cheddar-Sage Biscuits – Can be made 1 day in advance and re-heated. Sage goes nicely with turkey.

Cheddar Sage Biscuits

Sides

Broccoli Raab with Pecans – can be made 1-2 day in advance and re-heated.

Broccoli Raab with Pecans

Mashed Potatoes - can be made several hours in advance. Hold in a metal bowl over simmering water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap to prevent drying. Add more cream or milk before serving if the potatoes have dried out a bit.

Mashed Potatoes

Cranberry Sauce with Bourbon – can be made up to a week in advance. Made in the oven so it frees up your stovetop. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Cranberry Sauce with Bourbon

Roasted Romanesco Cauliflower – can be made several hours in advance. Pop back in the oven for a few minutes to re-heat. Grate some Parmesan over the cauliflower for a little more richness.

Roasted Romanesco Cauliflower

Kale and Ricotta Salata Salad – believe it or not, this salad can be made several days in advance. Unlike lettuce, the kale is hearty enough to not get slimy under the weight of the vinaigrette. Flavors actually get better if made a day in advance. Can be served cold or at room temperature.

Raw lacitano kale for Kale and Ricotta Salata Salad

Dessert

Apple Pie with Boiled Cider – pie can be made one day in advance. I usually serve apple pie with this Calvados Ice Cream (it’s heaven). You can omit the boiled cider to save time. Add a bit more sugar to compensate.

Apple Pie with Boiled Cider

Bourbon Milkshakes – can’t really be made in advance, but really easy to make using store-bought ingredients. And a perfect ending to your fabulous Thanksgiving meal. Give yourself a round of (bourbon-y) applause!

Bourbon Milkshake

Buttermilk Shortcakes with Strawberry Sorbet and Vanilla Creme Fraiche Sauce

Whoa – two strawberry posts in a row! I should’ve planned this whole blogging thing out a little bit better. Because strawberries are so delightful and so in-season right now, I guess I don’t really care that I have two strawberry posts in a row. Really, I don’t.

This is Thomas Keller’s recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook, with some minor modifications. I find that some celebrity chefs’ cookbooks are not as fool-proof as I’d want them to be (I won’t name names), but the French Laundry Cookbook is amazing. If you don’t want to go all-out and make the shortcakes and the crème fraîche sauce, at least make the strawberry sorbet. It is truly the essence of strawberry – so delicious and such a good way to use up lots of strawberries that you may have on hand from obsessively going to the farmer’s market and buying strawberries from at least 4 different vendors. There is no way that this sorbet will be good with regular-old conventional store-bought strawberries. They simply do not have the strawberry flavor that locally-grown berries do. So really, don’t waste your time because it’s a big pain to hull 2 1/2 pounds of strawberries. I’m just sayin’.

My flour of choice for biscuits, White Lily, has sadly been bought by Smuckers and the mill shut down. I found an excellent alternative from King Arthur Flour called “Mellow Pastry Blend“, which (gasp!) I liked better than White Lily – it is unbleached and made the most delicious, tender shortcakes. Exciting!

A fun little kitchen project aside: Instead of wasting the seeds and pulp that remain from the straining process (when making the sorbet), you can make fruit leather with the remains: oil a small baking sheet with cooking spray, very thinly spread the leftover strawberry pulp onto the baking sheet using an offset spatula, and bake in a 150°F oven for about 30 minutes, or until the leather is still pliable but no longer super sticky. If you can’t get your oven as low as 150°F, set to 200°F and prop open the door a bit. Keep an eye on the temperature because you don’t want your strawberry leather to caramelize.

Ingredients:

For the Strawberry Sorbet:
(Makes 1 quart)

2 1/2 pounds fresh strawberries
1/4 cup honey
1 cup raw sugar (as fine as you can find it) or superfine sugar
1 tablespoon rum

For the Shortcakes:
(Makes 8 two-inch shortcakes)

1 1/2 cups King Arthur Mellow Pastry Blend flour or all-purpose flour, plus additional for kneading and rolling
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons raw sugar or granulated sugar
4 tablespoons butter, very cold and cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup buttermilk, well-shaken, plus extra for brushing
1 tablespoon demerara sugar, for topping

For the Vanilla Bean Crème Fraîche Sauce:
(Makes 3/4 cup)

3/4 cup crème fraîche
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 vanilla bean, split

To Assemble:
(for 8 servings)
1 cup diced fresh, ripe strawberries

Special Equipment: blender, fine-mesh strainer, ice cream maker, 8-or 9-inch round cake pan, 2-inch biscuit cutter

Procedure:
For the Strawberry Sorbet:

1. Wash and hull the strawberries. Place strawberries in a blender and blend until smooth (you may need to do this in batches depending on the size of your blender). Add the honey and the sugar and blend briefly.
2. Force the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a large bowl. Stir in rum.
3. Freeze sorbet according to your ice cream maker’s instructions, then transfer to the freezer to freeze completely.

For the Shortcakes:

1. Lightly grease an 8-or 9-inch round cake pan or a small baking sheet. Preheat oven to 500°F.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
3. Using a pastry blender or your fingers, work quickly to cut in the butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs interspersed with small pea-size lumps of butter.
4. Stir in the buttermilk with a fork until a shaggy dough forms. If the dough seems too dry, add more buttermilk. If too wet, add just a touch of flour. (Remember: you can always add more but you can’t take it away.)
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead 2-3 times until the dough comes together. Roll out to 3/4-inch thickness and stamp out 2-inch rounds with a biscuit cutter. Take care not to twist the cutter as you stamp out the biscuits (um, I mean shortcakes).
6. Transfer shortcakes to the cake pan or baking sheet, with sides touching.
7. Brush with 1 teaspoon additional buttermilk and sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown.
8. Cool on a wire rack.

For the Vanilla Bean Crème Fraîche Sauce:

1. Combine the crème fraîche and the sugar in a small saucepan. Scrape the contents of the vanilla bean into the pan.
2. Whisk over medium-low heat until the mixture just barely simmers and the sugar has dissolved.
3. Keep warm if using immediately, otherwise cool and refrigerate.

To Assemble:

1. Briefly rewarm the crème fraîche sauce and shortcakes, if necessary. Spoon a bit of the sauce onto a plate. Split a shortcake horizontally and place the bottom half on the sauce.
2. Top the shortcake bottom with chopped strawberries, a small scoop of the strawberry sorbet, and the top of the shortcake. Eat immediately.

Dairy Cow at Battenkill Creamery in New York State

I’m really not one for resolutions. I half-heartedly make them on New Year’s, only to promptly break them a day or two later. But I think the sentiment is a good one: think about things you want to accomplish in the coming year, and inch toward those goals. Don’t beat yourself up for not adhering to every single resolution you make. I think about Earth Day like an eco-New Year’s. I’ve been thinking about my goals to be a little bit more Earth-friendly, and I’ve been thinking about things I can share with you: some are easy-peasy, simple things you can do every day. Some require a little more commitment. Of course, (obviously) I love food and all things food-related, so most of the things on the list are food-ish. And really, our food choices can make such a difference. So much pollution and waste is generated from factory farms (not to mention lots of other bad stuff). So much energy is wasted transporting fruits and vegetables from, say, South America. And we, ourselves, as individuals (especially those of us who like to cook), generate lots and lots of food waste.

Sometimes thinking about all of this stuff can be a little overwhelming. But you can take small steps, and each small step you take will eventually add up to longer and longer strides for everyone. You don’t have to eat locally all the time. Heck, I really can’t see myself giving up citrus and olive oil and avocados and mangoes (you guys in California have it much, much easier, dammit), I just love good food too much. But I do try to make food choices everyday in a mindful way – think about where your food has come from, what it’s taken to get to you, and what you’ll do with it.

OK, here’s my list:

1. Buy at least some of your meat, dairy products, or eggs from local farmers.

I’m going to tell you upfront: it’s going to be more expensive than buying factory-farmed meat, dairy, or eggs from your local grocery store. I tend to eat less meat in order to be able to afford high-quality meat. And I often buy cheaper cuts of meat that I can stew or braise (cheaper cuts are often more delicious anyway, oddly enough). I am lucky because I belong to a food co-op that gets a lot of its meat, dairy, and eggs from local farmers, but farmer’s markets and CSAs (community supported agriculture) that carry locally raised meat, dairy, and eggs are now popular across the country. Many farmers also sell cuts of meat, dairy products, and eggs directly to the public. Some info on factory farming from FactoryFarm.org here, and info on meat labeling at Animal Welfare Approved here.

2. Cut down on the amount of processed food that you eat.

Processed food usually has a lot of sugar (in the form of high fructose corn syrup), lots of (often GMO) corn and soy, and lots and lots of preservatives. I know that processed foods are often more convenient. But in the long run, you don’t really benefit from eating processed food. Try to make a commitment to cooking with real food (fresh vege and fruit, whole grains, etc.) an extra one or two days a week. Focus on the joy that you get putting good food on the table – food you’ve made with your own little two hands. The Eat Well Guide is a great resource for finding real food (via farmer’s markets, stores, co-ops, etc.).

3. Cut down on drinking bottled water.

In most places in the US, tap water is delicious and healthy. It’s regulated better than bottled water and therefore is probably marginally better for you. Oh, and it’s absolutely free! (Hmm, maybe use the money you save on bottled water to buy good meat?) And most importantly, drinking tap water will reduce the amount of plastic bottles in our landfills. I have a lightweight stainless steel water bottle that I carry in my bag wherever I go. More reasons not to drink bottled water on Treehugger here.

My compost bucket - filled to the brim and ready for dumping

4. Start composting.

I know – this might be the hardest sell on my list. And it’s something that I only recently started doing. I began to feel really bad about the amount of food waste I generate. I’m talking significant, serious amounts of food waste. I don’t have my own garden (I live in an apartment complex in Brooklyn, after all) and so composting my waste just didn’t seem like a viable option until recently. I joined a community garden down the street that composts, so I will be dropping my compost off on a weekly (or more) basis. Many cities have community gardens that need your food waste! If you have a yard, consider composing yourself, and maybe growing a few plants for food in the process. Some farmer’s markets also have compost drop-off sites. An interesting post from Ethicurian on the follies of composting is here.

Vegetable-Dyed Easter Eggs

Put the last of the season’s root vegetables to good use for this Easter kitchen project! Vegetable dyes won’t give you vibrantly colored Easter eggs – the hues are much more subtle and natural looking, almost as if you raided the nests of different chicken breeds.

Making your own vegetable dye is a little more labor-intensive than sticking a dye tablet in a coffee cup, but it’s so much more fun, because different vegetables produce colors that you wouldn’t expect. Red onion skins, for example, produce a lovely blue-ish color.  I experimented with several different types of fruits and vegetables, some that worked, and some that didn’t. Fails: Pomegranate juice (turned the eggs brown…not so pretty) and yellow beets (the color of the water was bright, bright yellow, but unfortunately the color didn’t adhere to the eggs). Wins: red beets, turmeric (both fresh and powdered), yellow onions, and red onions. I wanted the brightest colors that I could get, so I used a multi-phased method: 1) creating the dye; 2) boiling the eggs in the dye; 3) cooling the dye and soaking the boiled eggs in the dye. Vinegar is must, because it helps the natural vegetable dye adhere to the eggs. Normally when I make hard-boiled eggs, I immediately plunge the boiled eggs into ice water to stop the cooking process. I was afraid this would make some of the color come off, so I skipped this step. Just note that your eggs may not be as perfectly boiled as they normally would be sans dyeing experimentation.

It’s fun to play around with different volumes of vegetables. For the onions, I used 3-4 medium onions per color. For the beets, 4 medium. For the turmeric, I used 3 fresh rhizomes plus 1 tablespoon powdered. Different ratios of vegetables to water will produce different results.

Ingredients:

Red onion skins (purpley-blue)
Yellow onion skins (dark golden yellow-ish brown)
Red beets, sliced thinly (pinkish)
Turmeric, either fresh (sliced thinly) or powdered (bright yellow)
White vinegar
White eggs (don’t use brown eggs for obvious reasons)

Procedure:

1. For all of the vegetables: add the vegetables to a medium pot. Cover with enough water that will later be able to cover the eggs. Add 1 tablespoon white vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat and cool to room temperature. (At this point, you can also soak the mixture overnight for more vibrant colors.)
2. Once the dye mixture has cooled, remove the vegetables and discard (or eat or compost). Add the eggs to the dye water. (The eggs should be completely covered by the dye. If not, add a bit more cold water to cover.) Add another 2 tablespoons white vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. As soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, turn down the heat so that the water is just simmering, cover the pan, and simmer for 10-11 minutes. Remove the eggs to cool.
3. At this point, you can leave the eggs as-is if you like their subtle color. Or, for more vibrant hues, cool the dye water slightly (I poured the dye water into measuring cups).  Add the eggs back to the dye water and let soak until they are the color you want. At this point, you can combine colors – I dipped an egg in the turmeric mixture than then the beet mixture to get an orange-ish color. Remove carefully, dry, and refrigerate.

Homemade Candied Ginger

A trifecta of ginger deliciousness! Actually, the candied ginger is a byproduct of the ginger syrup (or is ginger syrup the byproduct of candied ginger??): you can’t create one without the other.  I had a bit of a hankering for homemade ginger ale, because it’s so much spicier than store bought and I felt like something a little tingly. Oh, but I can think of so many other ways to use ginger syrup…on pancakes, in cocktails, in ice cream…and, of course, candied ginger is good in lots of baked goods (scones? cookies? muffins?) and as a sweet nibble.

Slice your ginger into very, very thin disks if you want a more chewy candied ginger. Because I was looking for a more al dente candied ginger, like the kind you find packaged in grocery stores, I chopped my ginger into small-ish (about 1/2-inch) squares. Just note that it will take quite a bit longer to soften ginger cut into chunks than ginger sliced into thin disks. If you can find young ginger, which has a much thinner skin and is often a bit pink in color, definitely use it instead of regular (read: old) ginger. Older ginger, like the kind I used, tends to be more fibrous, so you won’t have the creamier interior consistency that you will get if you can get your hands on young ginger.

Homemade Ginger Ale

Ingredients:

For the Candied Ginger and Ginger Syrup:

1/2 pound ginger (8 oz.), about 2 large knobs, peeled
2 cups granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup extra for coating the ginger pieces
2 cups water

For the Ginger Ale:

Seltzer or sparkling water
Ginger syrup (recipe above)
Lime slices (optional)

Procedure:

1. Slice or chop the ginger (as discussed above).
2. In a medium heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and the water over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is mostly dissolved. Add the ginger pieces.
3. Simmer over medium heat for 1 hour if you’ve sliced your ginger very thin, and at least twice that if you’ve cut your ginger into larger chunks. (Check on them occasionally to make sure they aren’t drying out and that the water isn’t evaporating too quickly.)
4. Meanwhile, line a small sheet pan with wax or parchment paper, or with tinfoil. Spread the remaining 1/4 cup sugar on the lined sheet pan.
5. When the ginger is done (it will be soft), remove with a slotted spoon to the prepared sheet pan. Toss the ginger pieces in the sugar and spread them out. Let dry for several hours, or overnight. Let the ginger syrup cool, then refrigerate. If you want a thicker ginger syrup, continue to cook over medium-low heat until it reaches the consistency you want.
6. To make homemade ginger ale: add 3-4 generous tablespoons (or more, to taste) of ginger syrup to a large pint glass. Top with seltzer or other sparkling water. (I also like to add a bit of lime. Uh, and a bit of rum.) Garnish with candied ginger, if desired.

Makes about 1 1/2 cups ginger syrup and approximately a cup of candied ginger.

Homemade Tomato Sauce

With few exceptions, my general philosophy is that homemade food tastes better and is a lot cheaper than commercially-prepared food. While the “taste better” part of that philosophy is, admittedly, a bit subjective and hard to covey over the internets, the “a lot cheaper” part is subject to actual quantitative analysis and can be proven, much like a scientific hypothesis from your 8th grade biology class would be. My theory: that homemade tomato sauce (a.k.a., spaghetti sauce, a.k.a., marinara sauce) is cheaper than the store-bought kind, even those brands loaded with high-fructose corn syrup (lots are, you know – check it out), which is a super cheap sweetener used to cover up the flavor of super low-quality and acidic tomatoes. But as I thought about it, I wondered if my homemade version would really turn out to be cheaper than store-bought, given that I tend to favor high quality ingredients like San Marzano tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil. Doubt started to creep in. Homemade might be the winner in the taste department, but maybe not in the price department. The only way to figure out this very pressing problem was to conduct a brief “scientific” study. My results are outlined below.

Objective: to find out if homemade tomato sauce is cheaper than store-bought tomato sauce.

Method: using some fancy culinary school math, I calculated the actual cost of my go-to simple tomato sauce (recipe below), including the cost per tablespoon of the somewhat expensive olive oil I like to use. I then compared the results to the cost of a couple different varieties of spaghetti sauce on the market, based on a quick trip to my local grocery store.

Results: The price of my homemade tomato sauce, using expensive extra virgin olive oil (at $16+ per bottle) and organic San Marzano tomatoes was $3.98 for a little over 28 ounces. The cost of commercial tomato sauce ranged in price from $6.29 (Amy’s Organic) to $2.99 (Newman’s Own). A cost-comparison table is below:

Conclusion: Although I used high-quality ingredients, my homemade sauce was cheaper or approximately comparable to store-bought. Or, alternatively stated, my homemade sauce smacked down the store-bought kind.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons good quality extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
One 28-ounce can whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed with your hands
Red pepper flakes
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Procedure:

1. In a medium, heavy saucepan, add the olive oil and chopped garlic, and turn the heat to medium. Cook and stir the garlic until it turns golden and starts to smell delicious. Do not let the garlic brown!
2. Immediately add the crushed tomatoes, a few pinches of red pepper flakes, a generous pinch of salt, and one or two grindings of black pepper.
3. Bring the sauce to a boil over medium-high heat, then immediately turn the heat down to medium low and let simmer for 20 minutes or so, or until it’s as thick as you’d like. (If you like your sauce a bit smoother, you can crush the tomatoes further with a potato masher or a hand blender.)
4. Serve with any kind of pasta, or use as a base for lasagna, or puree further and use as pizza sauce.

On another note: I have a thing against cinnamon. I am just not a fan, especially of the apple-cinnamon combo. I think cinnamon takes away from the flavor of the apples. I like a spice that is a little more subtle; one that doesn’t hit you over the head with its spiciness. I have two go-to spices of late – star anise and cardamom. I like to use them as substitutes for cinnamon or as a little unexpected addition to something, as in the top of the Sally Lunn. In the case of this applesauce, I snuck both spices in. You might choose to just use one or the other, or maybe you don’t have the extreme aversion to cinnamon that I do. That’s the beauty of applesauce – it’s pretty flexible. Who knew that applesauce could be interesting – right?  I had boiled cider left over from my apple pie with boiled cider experiment (and guess what? I found out that boiled cider lasts a loooong time in the fridge!) so I figured I’d throw it in instead of sugar, but feel free to go sugarless or add a tablespoon or two of sugar (this will depend on how sweet your apples are).

Apples ready for applesauce

Ingredients:

5-6 medium apples (I used a combination of pink ladies, fujis, and honeycrisps, but feel free to experiment with other varieties), peeled, cored, and chopped into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons boiled cider (optional)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
3 tablespoons water
1 pod star anise (optional)
1 pod cardamom (optional)

Procedure:

1. Combine the chopped apples, boiled cider, lemon juice, and water in a medium heavy saucepan.
2. Toss in the star anise and cardamom pods.
3. Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat, then immediately turn down to low.
4. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes or longer, or until the apples have broken down to the consistency you desire.
5. I ate my applesauce with the leftover Sally Lunn. (Have you noticed that I really, really like saying “Sally Lunn”?)

Dough ornaments in the shape of food - clockwise from top left: empanada, pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, hotdog, strawberry, and hamburger

Strawberry and pizza ornament

Ingredients:
3/4 to 1 cup flour (this depends on the humidity and temperature outside)
1/2 cup table salt
1/2 cup water

Special Equipment: Cookie cutters, glitter, glue, acrylic paint, ribbon or string for hanging

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 250ºF.
2. Mix the flour and salt together.
3. Add the water and mix until a dough forms.
4. Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface. Knead a few times, or until the dough is very smooth. You may need to add additional flour – you do not want the dough to be sticky at all. Don’t add too much – if the dough gets too dry, it will crack when you bake it.
5. Roll out to 1 to 2 inch thickness and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, or make free-form ornaments by sculpting the dough. (It helps to flour your work space.) Don’t forget to poke a hole in the ornament so you can hang it later! I used a chopstick to poke the holes.
6. Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Baking time depends on how thick your ornaments are. Very thin ornaments only need about an hour and a half. Very thick ornaments may need over 2 hours.
7. Cool completely, then decorate to your heart’s desire.

Hotdog!

A quick note about buttermilk – so called “traditional” buttermilk is the liquid that is extruded during the butter-making process (you can see it pretty clearly in the photos below). Modern buttermilk is simply cow’s milk to which various bacterial cultures have been added (like yogurt) that produce the characteristic tang and thickness of commercial buttermilk.

You’ll need:
One pint high-quality heavy cream
A stand mixer
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt (optional)

Procedure:

1. Pour the heavy cream into the bowl of the mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

2. Start the mixer out on low (position 2 on a KitchenAid Mixer) so you don’t spray heavy cream all over yourself.

3. Increase the mixer speed gradually to medium-high (position 6). After 2-3 minutes, the cream will start to thicken to the consistency of sour cream.

4. Keep going, and watch as the cream begins to turn into whipped cream. First, soft peaks (still sort of runny).

5. Then, hard peaks. It will take between 3-5 minutes for the cream to reach this stage.

6. At this point, if you were making whipped cream you’d probably shed a little tear, because the cream is starting to curdle. For our purposes – have no fear – keep going.

7. After another minute or two, you’ll see the cream really start to clump up. Another magical thing you’ll start to notice: the cream will start to get more yellow in color. Things happen really fast after this.

8. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. You’ll probably have scrape more than once.

9. You’ll start seeing the cream clump even more. Buttermilk will begin to extrude from the mixture and it will become even more butter-yellow.  At first, a tiny bit of buttermilk will come out:

10. Then, a huge amount! From one pint of heavy cream, I collected about a cup of buttermilk. Turn the mixer back down to low so you don’t spray buttermilk all over yourself.

11. Keep going on low – more and more buttermilk will be extracted. Stop when you see about a cup of buttermilk in your mixer bowl (you don’t have to measure – just estimate).

12. It’s a little strange – but now you have to wash the butter. This prolongs the butter’s life and actually extracts even more buttermilk. Pour off the buttermilk (you can use it in cooking just like you’d use regular buttermilk) and gather the butter bits together. Under cold running water, squish the butter between your fingers, taking care not to drop any in the sink (you should see additional buttermilk come out).

13. You can put your new butterball back into the mixer and beat in a bit of salt, if you like (this will preserve the butter even longer).

14. Roll up into a tube using a piece of wax paper, parchment, or plastic wrap and refrigerate or use immediately.

15. You have butter! The entire operation took maybe 20-25 minutes.