The Great Butter Debacle of 2011

I was in London this week when I received word from a friend that I had better buy butter while there because Norway was out.
Come again?
Yes, Norway, the COUNTRY is out of butter. How this happens, I am a bit unsure, but the dairy industry has been quick to blame the low-carb dieters and lower than average production levels.
Well, I did buy butter in London and brought it home to Norway, but really, the whole out of butter thing bothered me. I won't say it's a conspiracy set in motion by the margarine lobby, but I'll be damned if I'm going to eat that nasty butter LIKE spread. The sign at the grocery store on the bare butter shelves says there will be no butter until at least the 1st week of 2012, so clearly I needed to take action. So, why not make my own? Moving out to the country has given me a crafty streak, so I decided to tackle it with the help of my 2.5 year old. We googled 'How to make butter' and got about 5000 hits, so don't worry, there are plenty of methods. Basically, if you are going to make butter, you need heavy whipping cream. That's it.
So, we got out the stand mixer and our cream and measured out 2 cups:


Then poured it into the bowl of the mixer and using the whisk attachment, let whip:
Every once in awhile, have a peek in and look:
It will whip up beautifully into fluffy whipcream in a couple of minutes:
Your kitchen helper may want to lick the spatula:

Keep whipping and whipping and suddenly it will totally separate and look disgusting, like yellow blobs floating in water! Guess what, you have curds and whey:

Pour it into a strainer and the buttermilk will drain out leaving the butter behind:
Then use your hands to ball it up and squeeze out the excess buttermilk and put it back in the mixer and see if you can beat out any more water. Drain it one more time and form it into a ball and then it's time for an ice bath. Apparantly, if you bathe it, it will make it last longer. So I bathed it in freezing cold water:


and then once the water ran clear, took it out, patted it dry and formed it into a ball. I then kneaded sea salt into it:
And voila, I made BUTTER!! It is delicious:
No worries here about any dang butter shortage! Try it! It's so easy!