The Butter Making Process
Butter is produced by churning cream until the fats separate from the liquid (buttermilk) and butter is in a semi-solid state. OK hands up! Who has whipped the cream too much and ended up with butter when you were asked to whip the cream for tonight's desert!
It is believed that the Nomads first discovered butter-making by mistake. They are said to have collected milk from cattle and goats, separated the cream from the milk, and then mixed the cream until it turned into butter.
Farm-made butter uses the cream directly from whole milk, whereas commercially made butter is made by extracting small amounts of cream from whey (a by-product of cheese-making) using large centrifuges.
Butter contains the fat of the milk. It is usually salted, but it can also be made from acidulated or bacteriologically soured cream. Unsalted butters are also available. Until the early nineteenth century butter was still made from cream that had been left to stand and sour naturally. The cream was then skimmed from the top of the milk and poured into a wooden tub. Butter was then made by hand, using a butter churn. The commercial cream separator was introduced at the end of the 19th century, the continuous churn had been commercialized by the middle of the 20th century.