Chocolate-It's What's for Dinner

It's been a while since I've done a "Flash-Back Friday" (AKA recycling a previous post) so here goes...It is that time of year when I have to put my homemade butter back in the refrigerator instead of leaving it out on the counter (submerged in water) so I thought it might be a good time to talk about how wonderful homemade butter is. I just knocked out another batch today. I happened to have some cultured buttermilk on hand so I added about 2T of that just to give the butter a little something extra in the flavor department. Butter is so easy to make and so worth the taste. I still keep the butter submerged in water when I have to put it in the refrigerator because then it doesn't pick up odd tastes from the refrigerator. The water keeps all the air out. There is nothing like the taste of homemade butter on a good slice of bread. The great part about homemade butter is that it's the perfect time to add some fresh herbs. After you add the salt, you can...

Why would you want to make your own butter? Because it tastes better! And it's easy. All you need it heavy cream, salt, and a mixer-although you can get away without using the mixer. If you are using a mixer, you will need to cover it with plastic wrap, unless you're really into cleaning up splatter. Pour heavy cream into your mixer. It doesn't have to be fresh. It can be close to its expiration date. This time I used 3 cups because I had an open container and an unopened one. You just whip it for about 10-15 minutes on high. It first looks like whipped cream, then starts to deflate a bit, then starts to get a yellowish hue, until finally you hear a clunk clunk noise and you know you have separated the butter from the buttermilk (boy was that a run on sentence or what?). By this time the plastic wrap is so covered in splatter you can't see into the bowl any longer. Butter:  Buttermilk: From 3 cups of cream you end up with about 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk. Str...