We made butter...

   We have just had a hectic three weeks, with three birthdays and a wedding anniversary, we've been a little run off our feet. Things are now settling down a little though, and we have been enjoying the program escape in time. It is about life on a Victorian farm, and how modern families would cope with the work challenges.

    My son has been watching this program and at the moment there is a little spark of interest which I'm hoping will grow into a big research project. This is the way things usually work for him, it happened with the Romans, something sparked his interest then for a couple of months it was his big passion. We read every book we could find, did Internet research, watched documentaries, played games, made mosaics etc. At the end of this history session he had retained a lot of information and had a lot of fun.

     So at the moment I find myself trying to 'fan the flames' so to speak, hoping that our next history project will be about the Victorians. In the 'escape in time'  farm program one of the tasks was to make butter, so we thought we would give it a try ourselves. It is very simple all you need is a jar which you fill with cream to about a third full and shake it.... a lot!

      This works best if the cream has been at room temperature for an hour, it takes about 10 minutes to turn into butter, you then need to separate the butter from the buttermilk. The butter needs to be rinsed and squeezed to get rid of all the buttermilk and can be lightly salted if you choose to.

       The children loved making butter, especially the taste and we have now made it several times. I would highly recommend giving it a go... in the interest of education of course. If you would like a more detailed guide on making butter you can find one here.