homemade butter

[Guest]

I have been lucky enough lately to find wonderful homemade butter at the local farmer's market. However the moisture content is a lot higher than store bought butter and it seems to bake differently (ex. It required a lot more to get my buttercream to come together than usual.) I was just wondering if anyone had any experience working with it. I would love some approximate ratios or tips on working with it as it really is wonderful stuff (not to mention expensive.) I would hate to waste it when a recipe doesn't turn out properly.

Thanks!

Allison

 

[rat]

Well the easy way would be to obtain the water content from the maker and adjust your recipe accordingly. So if the hypothetical butter contains 75% butterfat vs 85% for a high fat butter and you needed 100 grams of butter and 100 grams of liquid (for example), the new recipe would be 88.235g water and 111.765 g butter. Hopefully my math is correct here, I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but I hope you get my meaning. 

An alternative would be to clarify the butter and measure the resulting seperations and determine the butterfat% yourself.

Not to criticise but I would not use expensive butter making buttercream I think when it is all said and done most if not all people would not be able to taste the difference. We buy locally made organic, non hormone, grass fed, handmade butter from Birchwood Farms in Newtown Pa. A true artisinal butter but, at $16.00 a pound that buttercream would get expensice fast. That is strictly for eating, MAYBE for finishing a sauce.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the input! Both suggestions are really helpful. I'm not sure why I didn't think to ask the vendor and I'll probably try the clarification method until I have a chance to ask. As for the buttercream, that particular instance was for personal use and not for work. I spend so much time cost-cutting at work that it's nice to splurge for myself. Not to mention I'm trying to be more conscious of the dairy products I consume at home.

 

[kuan]

Whip it again and then knead it in ice water.  Of course that's a lot of work for what should have been done in the first place.

 

[chefpeon]

Gosh, I make homemade butter all the time. It's called overwhipping my cream......./img/vbsmilies/smilies/smiles.gif