Churning Goat's Cream into Butter

The Corgyncombe Dairy

A pat of Corgyncombe Butter stamped with a swan print.
But that's getting the butter before the cream...

At The Corgyncombe Dairy, a bowl full of dairy goat Carmella Lucille's cream.

Diane's butter churn that is a reproduction of a churn Tasha Tudor had.
Diane's husband planted cosmos in the vegetable garden at Diane's request, for cut flowers to be arranged in bouquets.

Cream is churned in the dasher churn by moving the dasher up and down. The repeated agitation of the cream causes the fat part (the butter) of the cream to separate from the buttermilk. The buttermilk is saved for baking.

The butter is then put in the wooden butter bowl, washed with cold water and worked with the wooden butter paddle to remove all of the remaining buttermilk from the butter. Diane uses her grandmum's wooden butter ware for making butter.

Butter rolled into a ball to press into a butter pat.

The butter is pressed into pretty butter prints. Printed butter is lovely to use at the table. Years ago farm wives would print their butter and take it to the country store for trading. If the housewife was known for superior butter, people would seek out the butter with her print. During the Depression, Diane's grandparents on both sides churned butter and traded it at the same general store. Diane's father's side had a wheat pattern butter print and Diane's mother's side had a star pattern butter print. The Corgyncombe Courant wonders who made the best butter!

Tasha Tudor added to a nice long four page letter to Diane, a P.S. about how she enjoyed Diane's article about butter making. Tasha commented about how white goat's butter was and she said "I use it in all my cooking! Delectable!"

In "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook", on page 63, there is an illustration of a girl churning with a young boy and four cats watching. At the beginning of the "Desserts and Beverages" chapter, on page 67, is an illustration of the original churn that Diane's reproduction churn was based on. Right beside the churn is a sweet little corgi peeking up on the table edge at some cookies. In the illustration on page 88 there is a girl churning with two corgis and a cat close by.

In "Mother Goose", illustrated by Tasha Tudor, on page 19, there is a lady named Mary churning in the dairy, with milk pans set on the shelves for the cream to rise to the top and then to be skimmed off. This has always been a favorite of The Corgyncombe Courant.

In "Seasons of Delight", written and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, on the Winter page there is a fun illustration of Tasha Tudor churning butter with a dasher that you can make move up and down. There is a corgi and cat at her feet.

Little Tasha commences churning. In the background, in "Seasons of Delight" Tasha Tudor has illustrated herself churning butter. The doll was named after Tasha because The Corgyncombe Courant was reminded of the portraits of Tasha Tudor when she was a girl painted by her mother Rosamond Tudor.

In the book "The Tale of Samuel Whiskers" or "The Roly-Poly Pudding" by Beatrix Potter, there are illustrations of the goings on in the dairy whilst the mischievous, missing kittens were being sought. Whilst Tabitha Twitchit was looking for her missing son Tom Kitten, another one of her kittens, Mittens, had hidden in an empty jar near the milk pans in the dairy. When Tabitha finally found her, Mittens exclaimed to her mother that she had seen a huge and terrible rat who swiped away a rolling pin and a pat of butter. Another kitten, Moppet, reported that she had spied a woman rat who had pilfered some dough from Tabitha's dough pan. Upon hearing the news of the stolen items, and remembering a roly-poly sound in the attic under the floor, they feared that perhaps a roly-poly pudding, with Tom as the main ingredient, was in the make...

Here is a link to: "The Tale of Samuel Whiskers" on YouTube

Photographed several years ago, Lydia Rebecca Sly Corgi watches the butter making process in hopes of a taste! Lydia reminds The Corgyncombe Courant of the sweet little corgi peeking up on the table edge at some cookies on page 67 of "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook".

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