Making Butter
Cream is churned in the dasher churn by
moving the dasher up and down. The repeated agitation of the
cream causes the fat part (the butter) of the cream to separate
from the buttermilk. The buttermilk is saved for baking. The
butter is then put in the wooden butter bowl, washed with cold
water and worked with the wooden butter paddle to remove all of
the remaining buttermilk from the butter. Diane uses her
grandmums wooden butter ware for making butter.
The butter is pressed into pretty butter
prints. Printed butter is lovely to use at the table. Years ago
farm wives would print their butter and take it to the country
store for trading. If the housewife was known for superior
butter, people would seek out the butter with her print.
Lydia Rebecca Sly Corgi watches the butter
making process in hopes of a taste!
Above are bran muffins made from scratch
from a receipt that Tasha Tudor gave Diane. The receipt is also
in "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook". The receipt had been
given to Tasha by a friend who been given it by another friend.
Diane was delighted that Tasha shared the receipt with her! The
muffins are buttered with hand churned butter and are so
delicious!
Eliakim May Corgi arrives in his mum's
kitchen (also known as Emily & Ethlyn's Potions &
Perfumery, the corgyn's pretend apothecary) for warm buttered
bran muffins and milk. He has his eye on several muffins! Eliakim
has set his top hat, with his gathered greenery tucked in the
side, on the other table. After getting a closer sniff of the
delicious smelling muffins, he walks over to the chair, pulls it
out, hops up and sits himself down. He then surveys the
apothecary whilst enjoying muffins and milk and hearing Phidelia
Finch twittering in the background.
Photographs by Diane Shepard Johnson
Photographs copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006: Diane Shepard Johnson
Web site copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006: Diane Shepard Johnson & Sarah E.
Johnson
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Johnson & Sarah E. Johnson.