How did I manage to mess this up? Twice?

[cariad]

Anyone here raised on a dairy farm or something?

We get a small container of cream every week with one of our milk deliveries. Well, we haven't had any call for cream for quite a while, so it has been piling up in the fridge. Today, I got the brilliant idea that rather than wait for the cream to go off and then chuck it, I would turn the oldest cream into butter. I pulled out my trusty Bamix immersion blender and watched the cream go from whipped cream, to clotted cream to a few moments of what looked like butter about to form, to what now stubbornly seems to be a buttery-type spread. No buttermilk (which I need to turn a container of cream into sour cream) and nothing solid. I have tried just continuing to use the Bamix and hope that it will eventually solidify and separate, but it has not worked.

So, assuming that I over-mixed it, I went for the manual method for a second container of cream. I poured it into a clean jam jar, sealed the lid, and shook it. Well, I got the exact same result. What is going on? Is there any salvaging this? I've read that if you don't properly separate out the buttermilk, the butter will probably go rancid quickly. Does anyone make their own butter? I was envisioning always having adequate butter supplies on hand, but alas, foiled again.

[Sydnee]

Didn't  grow up on a dairy farm but we do have a milk cow. An Ayrshire her name is Carmel but she is currently dry (not milking).

Anyway back to your question
Did you start with cold cream? It seems to work fastest with cold cream.
It sounds like you just haven't got it to the butter stage yet. It takes Forever. We have a gallon electric butter churn. we put a 3/4 of a gallon of cream in the churn. It goes from cream to whipped cream pretty quick. Then is gets liquidy again after a while. Then you start to see clumps of butter very small at first. It takes a while to form all the the butter. Butter will seperate into one big chunk and coming off the walls of the container usually. it takes us between half an hour and forty-five minutes. then you drain the "buttermilk" off and knead the butter under cold running water.

It takes longer if you roll or shake it by hand.
My suspicion is you didn't mix the cream long enough. Thou it could be it is just to hot there where you are. if that is the case cooling the buttery stuff and trying when it's cooler should make it work.

The "buttermilk" you get from making butter is not the same as the store bought buttermilk. The store buttermilk is made from a culture added to milk (at least in the US).

All the cooking shows that make whipped cream say "now make sure that you don't over whip your cream or you will have butter". It just aint true not that easy. all they do is show me they never made butter.

[cariad]

Wow, what a wonderful reply! Thank you for all of this information. The Bamix is renowned for its speed so I guess I thought it had had more than enough time, but perhaps I was too quick to give up. The first batch is in the fridge - added a bit of salt but beyond that I should be able to try again tomorrow, either with shaking or more blending. The other batch I decided to heat in the micro to see if I could at least get ghee out of it. Cannot quite figure what is going on with that because we liquefied it and now it seems to have a bright yellow substance on top and a white liquid below. I thought the white part was supposed to rise to the top, but it's probably again just down to not being patient enough.

Thanks again for the detailed response. Yeah, I've heard people say that about whipped cream, too. I've probably said it myself in fact.... 

[Sydnee]

As for the Ghee you tried to make. This a guess on my part since I've never melted partly made butter. I think the yellow was the butterfat (that had separated into butter from the cream) and the white is the cream.

The cream/butter you have in the fridge if it doesn't come together into butter it may be that salt was added to soon. The salt is added at the very end after you need it under running water. after you make sure there is no water left in the butter. Then you salt it and knead it in.  I would try and see if it will make into butter, after all what is the harm.

 http://familycow.proboards.com/ This is a discussion group for people that own/raise a dairy cow. But their recipes on making the cheese,yogurt, butter and other things you can do with milk and cream are wonderful. Very helpful people to. 

[cariad]

The "buttermilk" you get from making butter is not the same as the store bought buttermilk. The store buttermilk is made from a culture added to milk (at least in the US).

I didn't know this. I don't think they sell buttermilk (US kind) here in the UK, which is part of the reason I started down this path. It seemed like such a win/win, get butter and a starter for my sour cream.

Well, we had to chuck the ghee-like substance because I think it was starting to go rancid. I reckon you are absolutely right that it was cream underneath because we put the ghee in the fridge and the yellow part was solid but I was able to tunnel down to the white bit and drain off most of the white liquid. Further evidence that I just didn't mix it long enough.

However, we did get what I thought was buttermilk (probably less than a teaspoon) from the second attempt at butter and we added it to the little container of cream. I then left it out for maybe four hours, covered with a bit of kitchen towel. The directions I was following said it would take 12-18 hours but when we got back home mid-afternoon it was quite thick. We ordered Mexican takeaway for dinner and this sour cream was The Most Amazing sour cream I've ever had. I'll never go back to ready-made. Don't know if it would have worked out the same without the buttermilk, but it seems like it probably would. I've heard you can make creme fraiche by just leaving a pot of cream out for however long it takes, and I believe sour cream is just the next step in the evolution of condiments.

Still want to have another go with butter, too. I'll use the Bamix on the salted stuff and see if it comes together, but I suspect you're right that the salt will prevent me getting positive results. It has still been so fun getting to know this whole process better. Thanks so much, and I will definitely check out that link you provided! 

[Sydnee]

Glad the sour cream worked out. making home made milk products is really fun. if you have yogurt and buttermilk you have the 2 cultures that you use to make almost all cheese.
You are welcome glad I could help.