Overenthusiastic Whipping Turns Cream to Butter

I woke up Friday morning extremely excited about it being Friday—but less so about the fact that it was Friday the 13^th. Nearly every Friday for the last several years, I’ve treated myself to a latte at my favorite coffee house, a ritual of sorts I could not seem to break.  That morning, though, I had an overwhelming desire to make my own latte, and skip my usual Friday morning stop. 

It was hardly a task to whip heavy cream into a smooth topping for my Raspberry Truffle Coffee. I marveled at the results of this lovely whipped topping that I had just made. I thought to myself, ‘I do not need to stop at XYZ coffee house and spend five dollars for flavored coffee that I could easily make at home'. I hung onto that idea for most of the day.

The day was long and while some people were talking about going to happy hour to unwind from the week’s events, I was thinking about spending the evening in the kitchen. (Hindsight: I should probably have gone to happy hour.) All day I delighted in the fact that I had accomplished the easy task of making whipped topping for my coffee. I decided the moment I got home from work I would try it again. 

The drive home was anything but relaxing. If the stop and go traffic was not enough to make me want to scream, then surely the drivers cutting me off were.   I started having second thoughts about the happy hour events going on and nearly detoured back to meet everyone. Like a song stuck in my head, the image of me working in the kitchen kept playing over and over in my mind’s eye. There was positively no way around it! I was going home to work in the kitchen. I took a deep breath, smiled, and mumbled a few choice words at the driver who refused to move over into the slow lane and I continued driving home.

As I entered the house, I passed my husband, said hello, and went straight to the kitchen. He must have known I was on a mission because without saying a word to me, he watched as I opened cupboards, took out bowls and measuring cups, pulled open drawers, and finally opened the refrigerator. After grabbing a few items from the refrigerator and with a mouth full of food, I turned around and caught my husband watching me … or was it more that he caught me? 

It did not seem to matter how it happened because at the point our eyes met, I knew I had just got caught with a mouth full of strawberries and cream. I think there was some cream on my chin too. I immediately smiled, said I was working on a new recipe and continued pulling the rest of the strawberries out of the refrigerator. He shook his head approvingly and left me to work in the kitchen.

The stress of the entire week seemed to melt away from my body with those few savory bites of strawberries and cream. It occurred to me if this cream were thicker and fluffier it would taste so much better.  I stopped with that thought. I did not allow myself to consider any further than "I want fluffier cream." Soon enough I would understand the mistake I had made.

For those more experienced cooks, you may know exactly where I am going with this. I did, in fact, get thick cream, which eventually clumped and turned into a nasty chunky mess. As I stared at the mess, “the light bulb” went off, and I remembered that over-whipping cream too much will cause it to separate and eventually turn into butter. The process of making butter is fairly easy, and how I forgot this can only be attributed to the fact that as excited as I was to work in the kitchen, I failed to realize how utterly exhausted I had become. 

Upon that “light bulb” moment, I decided the cream I made the night before was, in fact, thick enough, and any more attempts to make a thicker cream would be futile. I called it a night with plans to start the next day with a clear mind and hopefully terrific ideas.

I woke up Saturday morning practically avoiding the kitchen all together, something I rarely ever do. I puttered around the house, cleaned up a bit, and went shopping for kitchen tools (another favorite hobby). Before long I had decided it was time to get working in the kitchen. I think I knew before I ever stepped into the kitchen that morning, I wanted to make butter. I made a large batch of butter and split the batch in half. I kept one half unflavored, unsalted butter, and the other half I flavored with garlic and onions.

I think of myself as a “Cook in Progress”. I am learning as I go and know that I have a lot to learn. With that in mind, my recipes are from my experiences with food. I hope you get the enjoyment out of them that I did in creating them. The recipe for the Homemade Butter can be found on The Cutting Board Cooking Club's website at www.thecuttingboardcookingclub.com. Comments and or suggestions can be sent to me at cuttingboardcookingclub@mail.com.