A day in the kitchen

Today I had several things I needed to do in the kitchen. This morning was reserved for making butter and cheese cake, and of course cleaning it all up in between as I hate working in a totally dirty cluttered kitchen...not that I have to have it spotless, just the counter tops clean and uncluttered. The butter went well, but trying to whip the cream for the cheese cake (using fresh cream from Mabel's milk) just didn't work. I tried it twice, and both times it would whip some, but not fully so it stayed kinda runny. I DO know how to make whipped cream, I have done it a lot with store bought whipping cream, but never tried it with fresh from the cow cream. I've never had a problem before with store bought, so wasn't expecting to have trouble with fresh...silly me.

Anyway this afternoon was cheese making time...and I also got out some of the goat cream I had in the freezer, to try to use it for cheese cake. I got it thawed out by putting the jar in warm water, enough to get a knife down in it to break it up into slush, and stirred it around, then put it in the fridge for a while. I made my cheese, and while the curds were "resting", before finishing the cheese, I tried whipping the goat cream, watching it closely although not to worried about it turning to butter, since we had tried two or three times this summer to make butter with goat cream...and even churned it for 3 or 4 hours one time between DH and I...and never had it turn to butter.

The cream this morning was a little lumpy, not cause of ice, but just cause it had been frozen, which seems to change the cream...although I used frozen before, and got it to whip. I figured the lumps would whip out...they didn't, they just turned to butter! (It's shown in the photo above.) In a short amount of time too, like 3 or 4 minutes...I couldn't believe it! Course knowing how things usually go, I can't say I'm really THAT surprised...I could only make whipped cream when I wanted butter, so it figures I'd make butter when I wanted whipped cream. LOL Needless to say I decided we would have to forgo having some cheese cake while Dad was here, and settled on a cake mix...that I might not mess up. *giggle*

My mission now (hopefully BEFORE thanksgiving) is to learn what I need to do to make whipped cream out of Mabel's cream. Does it just need to set longer in the fridge? Maybe it should be lots colder? Maybe it shouldn't just be some I skimmed off the milk, maybe I should have it be some that we got with the separator and do it a little thicker? Whatever it is, I have a month to figure it out...so hopefully I can, so we can have whipped cream on our thanksgiving feast that doesn't bother me like the store bought stuff does.

Thankfully the butter and the cheese turned out fine or I'd really be feeling like I couldn't do anything right today! LOL I don't usually have it work out so I have to spend so long in the kitchen in a day, but I had wanted to get the last of the goat milk out of the freezer and made into cheese, because deer season will be here soon and I want the freezer as empty as possible, so we are ready for the meat if we are lucky enough to get more this year. The meat we got last year is almost gone so we will be ready for more by then. :)

All in all it was a strange day...satisfying in some ways yet very frustrating in others. LOL I do enjoy making butter (when that's what I'm after anyway) even though it can be a little boring at times cranking the churn...but it's fun to watch the different stages the cream goes through to get to the butter stage, although I certainly wouldn't be adverse to shorting the crank time down...right not it is taking between 50-60 minutes to turn to butter. I'm hoping to cut that down eventually...if I can figure out how. LOL

I hope everyone has a great weekend, I'll be back next week unless something happens I just want to blog about this weekend. Take Care.