Making soft butter

Butter is expensive. But our family really prefers butter over margarine, for several reasons. Butter is also rock-hard fresh out of the fridge. You know what I mean? Like when butter is so hard that it tears up a slice of bread. 

So, to address both problems (expense and spreadability), I make my own soft butter. 

Our cost for vegetable oil is quite low, about 69 cents per pound, when bought in an institutional-size container (for a post on buying in institutional-size quantities, see here). While real butter is around $1.90 per pound (on sale, and usually limited to one or two pounds, and only with a coupon). By blending vegetable oil into the butter (using about 1/3 cup of oil, for every 1 cup of butter), the cost of my soft butter is about $1.59/lb.

I have two methods for making soft butter. The ratios are the same, just a different technique mostly determined by the amount I want to make at one time.

The first is a simple process, using a spoon and dish or crock.
To make soft butter, I soften 2 sticks (1 cup) of butter on the counter for several hours. I mash it up with the back of a spoon, in a small crock, until soft and spreadable. Then I add 1/3 cup of vegetable oil, a tablespoon at a time, mixing in well.

When the oil is all mixed in, it looks quite soft  and sloppy (and will have some lumps of butter here and there. I'm not a perfectionist about this).

I cover and refrigerate. Within a couple of hours in the fridge, it will be firm, but spreadable.

The second method I use when I am making a pound or more of soft butter at a time. I use my hand mixer. I do this just prior to using my mixer to bake a cake or make a batch of cookie dough, and then use that buttery bowl afterwards for the baking batter/dough.

I put 1 or 2 pounds of butter into a large mixing bowl, and allow to soften on the counter for an hour or two. I then use my mixer to cream the butter, and add in the oil, in proportions of 3 parts butter to 1 part oil. I blend until all is incorporated, then scoop into containers for the fridge. My buttery bowl and mixer are then used to mix some cake batter/cookie dough -- no extra washing. (Obviously, this is a much more efficient method for making soft butter, than one crock at a time.)

Soft butter only takes a few minutes to make, but it really slows our consumption of an expensive ingredient.

I sometimes go to extremes, with not wanting to waste anything

Using the core of a fresh pineapple

We were given a whole, fresh pineapple as a thank you, for some work my daughters and I helped with a week ago. Fresh pineapple is pretty rare for us, so we made the absolute most of the one we received.

The core of the pineapple is less flavorful, and more fibrous than the outer flesh of the fruit. Often the core is just disposed of.

I added the core pieces to a pitcher of filtered water and left in the fridge for a couple of days. This pleasantly flavored our drinking water for a couple of days.

Before I discarded the core pieces, I thought that maybe there's still some flavor left in them. So, I ran them through the juicer. I've got to be honest here. The resulting juice was significantly less flavorful than commercial pineapple juice. But not wanting to waste any nutrients, I mixed it in with the rest of some orange juice. Pleasant enough. Then, and only then, did I compost the remains of those pineapple cores.

I also cut the crown off and have it sitting in a saucer of water. I have a hunch that you need more of the pineapple corwn than I allowed. But if it does grow in to a house plant, that will be fun.

You know, I considered trying to use the skins of the pineapple. Some people juice the skins and all. But our pineapple was looking a little less than fresh, so I composted those skins. Still, the compost will make a free soil amendment in a few months, so I guess I didn't let any of it go to waste.

This is one of those weird little tips, and I'm not even sure if its true. But I was once told by the produce guy at the market, that to prevent fermentation of sugars at the base of a pineapple, and to ripen the fruit evenly,  stand  the whole pineapple, upside down, on the counter for 2 to 3 days. Does this work for us? Well, since I started doing this, none of our pineapples have had a fermented bottom half. But still, I don't know, for certain, if this really works.