Homemade Butter and Buttermilk

Making your own butter? Wow I found this is from the New York Times while in a daze with finding a new blog to follow but had to keep it for a rainy day (when I run out of butter... got a bulk package.

Homemade Butter and Buttermilk

6 cups organic heavy cream

Salt to taste (optional).

1. Pour the cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk. Tightly cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap and start mixer on medium-high speed. The cream will go through the whipped stage, thicken further and then change color from off-white to pale yellow; this will take at least 5 to 8 minutes. When it starts to look pebbly, it's almost done. After another minute the butter will separate, causing the liquid to splash against the plastic wrap. At this point stop the mixer.
2. Set a strainer over a bowl. Pour the contents of the mixer into the strainer and let the buttermilk drain through. Strain the buttermilk again, this time through a fine-mesh sieve set over a small bowl; set aside.
3. Keeping the butter in the strainer set over the first bowl, knead it to consolidate the remaining liquid and fat and expel the rest of the buttermilk. Knead until the texture is dense and creamy, about 5 minutes. Strain the excess liquid into the buttermilk. Refrigerate the buttermilk.
4. Mix salt into the butter, if you want. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate. Makes about 16 ounces (2 cups) each of butter and buttermilk.

And to think I used to help my grandmother make butter in  a butter churn.  She told me that  it would help me develop a large chest... LOL