Cooking for the Masses

For when you have to Cater for More than Just Family

Who does not like a delicious and traditional Butter Cream Frosting?

Made properly, it is light as air, fluffy, lip smacking and you want more.

Have you ever thought though, how it was made years ago when you had to churn your own butter?

Come with me as we go back in time to when I was a girl, when I used to help make fresh butter with my grannie and grandad, and yes, some of this was made into butter cream frosting that tasted sensational as the butter was just minutes old.

grandma and granddaddy were self sufficient, they had a immense vegetable and fruit garden enough to feed their 11 children who when they were grown up andmarried their families as well. They also kept, pigs, rabbits and chickens. They had many acres of land divided into fields and three of these fields were rented out to a adorable man up the road who had a herd of cattle. He supplied the whole kinfolk with fresh milk every day; the rest went to other locals. It was on this herd that I learnt the how to of hand milking cows however that is another story. Life was good.

Butter was not only used for butter cream frosting, but for making cakes, and cakes were continually on the menu. grandmother loved to bake and granddad well he was a Master Baker, and was immensely skilled in his profession. He would bake at work and then come home to freshly baked cakes, biscuits, bread and meals that nanna had spent all day making.

Nothing but fresh butter would do on his bread, just the mention of margarine would make his blood boil "Margarine is not natural, if God wanted us to eat unnatural things, he would not have provided us with ability to grow and assemble all things natural," he would explain.

Every 2 days, nana would prepare butter, or get one of her many grandchildren to help produce butter. She would get Farmer John to bring lashings of cream along with that morning's milk, and it would go into her sterilized and uncontaminated milk churn. She would then either get one of us or sit down and start off churning. This involved stirring the plunger of the butter churn in a circular, rhythmical motion. The plunger went through the midpoint of the butter churn lid, whilst all the time keeping an eagle eye on the texture of the cream watching and waiting for the butter to commence forming.

I have no idea how long this took, but for a little girl, it seemed like ages, but I would take a guess and say no more than 30-45 minutes. What I do remember is that my arms got tired, and grannie would have to take a little turn.

When the cream started to separate and form tiny lumps of butter, you would have to stop churning. The size of the lumps was important and I still remember to this day granny drumming into us the size of the butter lumps needed. "Bigger than wheat, will give wet feet" meaning, tiny bits of butter, no bigger than a grain of wheat otherwise it would free too much milk into butter which would destroy the taste.

Once the small butter lumps had started to take shape, nana then put a grand piece of muslin into a spacious bowl, with the corners held down by the weights from her weighing scales, and put the mixture into the muslin, then gather up all four corners and tie them together, and hang this mixture on a hook. The bowl was placed underneath to drain all the buttermilk out. The buttermilk was either used for cooking; especially for Granddads flaked rice pudding, or drank as a refreshing drink. Nothing went to waste.

Once this was drained, she would separate the mixture amongst 2or3 bowls, and with the aid of her butter pat paddles organize each lump into a solid piece of butter, getting any remaining milk to run clear. With this done, she would then place each part into a butter dish, and place them into her cold larder ready to use.

Oh My Stars, the taste of butter cream frosting made with butter this fresh was an utter taste sensation I can think of nothing that can compare.

For delightful Recipes for Butter Cream Frosting visit us at Frosting and Icing Recipes dot com.

A comitted cook all her life, trained by her Grand Father who was a,Master Baker Maggie David's recipes are a must for anyone involved in baking. Visit now!