Canning butter

Not long ago I had a type-talk conversation with someone about canning butter.  I told that person I used to do this. But, was it really only a childhood memory of what I thought I had done?  I remembered canning butter..... but was I really the one doing it?  Did my Grandma fix my mistakes when I wasn't looking?  I began to think my memory was.... hmm..... sort of like the memories Ladybug will have of doing things with me.  I know I helped my Grandma Mama canning butter but I couldn't remember the steps and I couldn't remember ever doing it all by myself.  This kept nagging at me.  I really wanted to know.... did I ever really can butter all by myself or not? 

I called my aunt to ask how Grandma Mama canned butter.  If anyone would remember how Grandma Mama canned butter, it would be her.  After a few minutes of family catching up conversation, I asked about canning butter and whether or not I had actually canned any all by myself.  What my aunt told me had me busting out loud at my light bulb (DUH!) moment.  My aunt said Grandma Mama made clarified butter and canned it.  Yes, I did help to make clarified butter and canned it but I never made it all by myself.  Grandma Mama would send me to fetch something at just the right moment and when I returned the most critical part of the process was already done.

My aunt explained the steps to me.  Clarified butter is a process of removing the milk solids from butter leaving only the fat.  Grandma Mama called it butter lard.  Lard of any kind will last for months without refrigeration.  If you use clarified butter regularly for cooking it rotates often.  Well, after all that wondering, I just had to do some myself.

I'm showing what I did with my butter but if you do an internet search for clarified butter (or ghee) you will find a ton of places with pictures or videos.  Clarified butter is used for cooking but would not taste very good if spread on toast.  It would be like spreading grease or lard on the toast.

Start by melting the butter in a pan over very low heat.  This is at the lowest setting I can get on my stove.  Whatever you do.... don't leave the stove while making clarified butter.  If you must leave then turn the stove off.

As soon as the butter is all melted it will start to foam.  Start gently stirring the butter to keep it from boiling over.  If the butter boils over and gets to the heat you could have a major fire on your stove.

Boil the butter for about 5 minutes while gently stirring.  It will start to separate as the milk solids start to fall to the bottom of the pot.  Keep cooking at a very gentle boil.  It will boil even on the stove's lowest setting.  I actually moved half the pot off the flame to lower the heat and it still boiled. 

Some people will tell you to skim off the foam on the top but I didn't.  I followed the steps given to me by my aunt.  She told me to let it boil for another 5 minutes after it started to separate.

Pretty soon the butter will look like this.  The milk part of butter has fallen to the bottom of the pot and the fat floats at the top.  It separates even more after the heat is turned off.

Pour this clear fat through some gauze fabric but stop pouring when you see the milk part start to go into the bowl.  If you loose a small part of the fat it's ok. You don't want even a little bit of the milk solids to be in the bowl.  You can throw the milk part away or use it in a recipe calling for lots of butter.  Hmm.... like maybe butter cookies.

Here's what the clarified butter looked like after straining it.

My aunt told me that if I wanted to can the butter for long term storage I should boil the butter fat again to remove the last remaining milk solids from it.  So I did.  Here you can see that it's starting to foam again.  This time I did skim the foam off with a spoon. 

By the time I had boiled it for another 5 minutes, while skimming, it looked very clear.  Strain through more clean gauze.

Pour it into clean canning jars.

Two pounds of butter made 1 1/2 pints of clarified butter.  This can be stored either on the counter for about 6 months or in the refrigerator for a couple of years.  As it cools it will become a soft-solid type of lard. 

If you want to store clarified butter for longer times you can water bath can it for 10 minutes.   The reason Grandma Mama canned her butter was because she had lots and lots of extra butter in the spring and a big family to feed.  We didn't have electricity either so no refrigerator.  It was canned to last until the following spring when milk would be plentiful again.  Grandma Mama canned her butter in half gallon jars.

At this time of year the cost of butter should be going down.  It's getting close to the season for butter.  Eggs too.  However, with the economy being so uncertain, and gas prices going up again, we can't be sure the price of butter will actually go down.  If you use butter for cooking really often, and happen onto a bargain, think about making clarified butter.  I plan to use mine when making biscuits that call for using lard.  Butter lard will give a really nice flavor to the biscuits. 

I'm so glad I cleared up the mystery of whether or not I was the one who made canned butter.  Now I can actually say I've done it all by myself. 

Freezing eggs

I had some eggs to freeze again.  This time I remembered to take photos for those who asked about it the last time.  I hope no one has been waiting for these instructions. 

For each cup of eggs add either 1/2 teaspoon of honey for eggs to be used in baking or 1/2 teaspoon of salt for eggs to be used in other ways.  

2 cups of eggs to be frozen

Gently mix the eggs to incorporate the salt or honey.  I use a fork for mixing so it doesn't add too much air to them. 

Eggs gently mixed together

Pour into ice cube trays and flash freeze.

Eggs ready to freeze

Pop the egg cubes out of the tray and put into a freezer bag.  Be sure to mark the bag whether the eggs are for baking or for other cooking so you know which is which.  Two cubes equals one whole egg.

When these are frozen I will use the trays to freeze some egg whites only.  No need to put salt or honey in whites only.  I plan to use some of the yolks to make egg custard..... or something. 

Paying for convenience?

I've talked about not paying for convenience food several times on this blog site.  It goes against my nature to pay a manufacturer to be my personal chef.  Things like adding butter sauce to a vegetable at double the cost of plain vegetables is probably the worst example I can think of but this next example comes in as a close second to that.

Pudding cups.  Aww.... come on now.  Paying someone to stir your pudding and put it into little cups for you?  Can you afford that personal chef's wages?  Let's talk about it for a minute.

See the price of the pudding cups?  If you buy 10 items you can get .50 cents off.  Let's say you don't have a sale like this so the normal price is $2.49 for 6 little cups containing about  3 or 4 tablespoons of pudding.  That works out to about .41 cents for each pudding cup.  We can figure up the hourly wage of this personal chef in a minute. 

If you are serious about saving money.... stop paying for convenience!  Learn to cook.  Hmm.... I mean learn to stir your own pudding.    It's not that hard.  

Hmm..... let me show you how it's done.  Maybe a visual demonstration will help you remember what it's costing for that personal chef to stir your pudding the next time you are tempted to purchase pudding cups.  This is all the cooking equipment you need. 

Oh yes, you will need a few of these.  I asked my neighbor to give these to me because she buys KFC several times a week.  Don't get me started on that convenience, it would take all day.  Baby food containers or any small container with a tight fitting lid will work for this cooking technique.

Pour 2 cups of cold milk into the measuring cup.  The measuring cup is the thingie with numbers on it.  Stop pouring the milk when it reaches the 2 cup mark.

Now pour the milk into the bowl.  Open the pudding box and pour the pudding powder into the milk.... like this.  Take the stirring thingie and start moving it around the bowl to mix the pudding and the milk together.  A little rapid movement every now and then helps too.

You will notice the pudding mixture starts to get thick in about 30 seconds.  Keep stirring for 30 seconds more to be sure you got it all mixed together.  That's it.  Your done.  The pudding is now officially pudding.  It took one minute to make.  Was that so hard?  Let it set for another 60 seconds to thicken up some more while you line up your containers. 

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, DING..... ok, times up. 

The next step is to take an ordinary spoon and put a little pudding into each container.  Add the lids and put them all in the refrigerator. 

Oops!  You made 5 containers instead of 6.  Ok, so you like a little more pudding than comes in those little cups.  I can understand that.  You now have one container for lunch each day at work this week.  Now let's figure up the cost of the personal chef's wages.

The cost of the box of instant pudding was .49 cents at Aldi.  Five self-made pudding cups is about .12 cents each if you add a little for the cost of 2 cups milk.  Total for 5 containers is .60 cents. 

You are saving about $1.89 of the cost of the prepared pudding cups.  It only took about 1 minute to stir.  At $1.89 per minute, your personal chef wants you to pay him $114.40 an hour to stir your pudding for you.  Can you afford that?  Wouldn't you want to be the one earning the $114.40 per hour instead of paying a personal chef? 

I don't know about you, but I believe $1.89 in actual savings, multiplied a few times, might work out to be enough to pay for some electricity or water once or twice a year. 

Hmm.... you want to know how to get the cost down to even less for pudding cups?  It will require some different cooking utensils but the technique is still just stirring.  Buy yourself some corn starch.  I believe this corn starch cost me around .69 cents when I bought it.  It goes on sale most often around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

 

The cost goes down to about .02 cents per pudding container if you make your own pudding cups with corn starch, sugar, and milk. That would be .10 cents for 5 pudding cups.  A savings of  2.39 for one minute of stirring.  At 2.39 per minute you would be paying yourself  $143.40 an hour to make your own pudding cups. 

Go to the Argo website and click on the recipe button to find all kinds of neat ways to cook with it. 

You get it now?  I hope my little spoof on stirring pudding helps you mentally see how to save money easily the next time you are tempted to pay for convenience.  Stop paying for a personal chef until you become a millionaire!   Oh, I forgot, millionaires don't pay those kinds of wages either.  How do you think they became millionaires?