homemade bread n butter

today is the first saturday of feb, we got up extra early to get snowflake to the airport... and luckily the trip was not wasted as we stopped over (on the way home) to the once a month good living growers' market... we were there at 7am and some people have already gotten themselves several green bags full of stuff!

and what was the crowd like? v similar to northside produce market... ladies and gents with their pure breed puppies, sipping lattes, carrying their french baskets filled with their astronomically priced, beautifully packaged organic, biodynamic produce...
and then there was us... carrying our smelly coles bags (since i forgot to bring my trendy LKK trolley, v sad) while salivating over smoking lamb patties...

i didn't think i bought much... but at the end of the 2 hours, and 70 bucks later, my wallet was much lighter...
i did manage to get some duck eggs though ( i have dreamed about them since i had one, bought from a farm shop in UK)... the rich oozing velvety golden yolk... and of course i was trying to re-create "that" experience...

so for lunch... it ended up being soft boiled, twin duck eggs rested on a bed of sweet potato/potato butter mash accompanied by salad leaves drizzled with balsamic vinegar dressing... a light sprinkle of freshly ground pepper and a crunch of fler de sel...
there was also the watermelon/banana/orange/ flex seed iced smoothie... it was yummy, it was very filling but the egg was a tad too stiff... 8 more duck eggs to practice, 8 more yolks to enjoy...

apart from duck eggs... i also got some cultured butter made from jersey cows' milk... very dear though, a 250g pack is a whopping $8.50 (double the price of the mass market cultured butter, at least quadriple that of normal butter)... and was it worth it? it was very buttery - due to being made with cultured milk - imparting a slight acid note to it... i am yet to compare it to the mass market cultured butter...

since it would cost me a dollar a spread, i thought i'd better make some bread just for the occasion... so i gathered whatever i have in the pantry and started kneading...

let it rose...

knocked it back down...

and let it rose again...

mean while there was the homemade butter making... i knew i won't be able to make cultured butter, so i started off with about 1L of double cream...

and let my trusty mixmaster beat away...

i had to hide it under the cloth as the cream spitted and splattered right from the start... as the cream began to peak, the splatter slowed and i had to switch the speed slower as the cream became stiffer (i didn't want to burn out little handy mixmaster)...

soft peaks became stiff peaks... and then became lumps... and the milky white liquid sneaking out...

as buttermilk was pour out, ice water was poured in to "wash" out even more buttermilk...

the butter is then pat-dried...lovely golden butter made from creamy double cream...

there was also the buttermilk, over a cup's worth - rich in casein / whey proteins...

after salting, my homemade butter was ready for spreading... over samolina bread...

... although the taste was not as buttery... it sure didn't cost the earth - less than $2 for 380g (bargain! most of which are now resting in the freezer)...