When you start at the source, the possibilities are endless.
Heavy cream smoked over hickory chips.
Smoky butter and buttermilk: two products for the price of one.
Full, deep penetration of flavor: priceless.
A few tips that I've learned about making butter:
cream must be thoroughly chilled before churning– overnight is best.
after churning, turn cream out into sieve and let drain thoroughly at room temperature (the fat globules will stick together easier when soft).
tossing and pressing on the fat globules while they are draining will also make it easier to cream and eliminates the "washing step". With infused cream, washing with water seems to dilute flavor and wastes buttermilk.
Playing with Fire and Water 
Hiya Chef,
Great teaser and an interesting idea to pre-smoke a liquid in preparation for transformation. I’m looking forward to the next post, especially as I’m certain that it’s not as straightforward as topping a savory pancake.
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Hi Linda,
lovely idea, have been using flavoured waters to ‘wash’ my butters in with limited success, but do have a question about the butter making.
whilst I have converted to your recipe for my butter, only difference is I use a mounted whisk mixer to overbeat my cream as we make 10Kg at a time, can you tell me why the cream needs overnight resting before churning, I only say this as I blast chill mine to 2C for 2 hours then churn and have great results, but am I missing something by not resting overnight either in yield or quality, or is blast chilling ok?
thanks
Alex.
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Alex,
blast chilling is ideal… I meant under normal refrigeration. I’ve found that the colder the cream, the faster it will churn and the yield/quality will be higher because it will retain the fat. Of course, it means that the buttermilk will be leaner.
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this…looks…INTERESTING! now, how did you go about smoking the cream? i don’t have a smoker, it looks like you are doing it on the stovetop – please divulge, as i am dying to give it a go.
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I use an old lobster pot for smoking outdoors on the grill. If you have a good exhaust fan you can smoke indoors on the stove. Either way, start by soaking wood chips in water for 30 mins., then place in bottom of pot in a foil pie tin or loosely wrapped in heavy duty foil. Place over high heat. When it begins to smoke, lower the heat and place the cream in a shallow dish on a rack set over the wood chips. Cover and let the smoke do its magic. I smoke a quart of heavy cream for about 30 minutes.
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