Runners who churn butter on their runs

(runnersworld.com)

43 points | by randycupertino 2 hours ago

7 comments

  • comrade1234 24 minutes ago
    This is really funny. My wife and I watched all of New Scandinavian Cooking over a few months and there was an episode where he made butter. It blew our minds at how simple it was. We had no idea!

    So we bought a couple of liters of cream (35% fat), put it in the stand mixer and made butter. There's a Serious Eats page about it.

    The butter we made was better than what we normally buy. We live in Switzerland so the normal grocery store butter is very good. Our butter had less water in it (you can tell in a frying pan) and more flavor. Plus we take the resulting buttermilk and make ricotta cheese and then we take the leftover whey and make Norwegian cheese (more like fudge). So we get three products from one batch of cream. The butter comes out to be about 20 cents cheaper per 250g than store bought and then the ricotta and "fudge" are free, so financially you come out ahead. The cleanup is a bit of a pain though.

    We've also made cultured butter from crème fraiche. It's tasty but even when the crème fraiche is on sale it's still like 2x the cost of using cream so probably not worth it other than gifts and special occasions. We made mandarin sorbet with the sour buttermilk after the crème fraiche butter and that was excellent.

    When I tell old Swiss people (people in their 70s/80s) that we make butter they think it's hilarious. They tell me about how when they were kids their parents made their own butter and also at parties/gatherings the parents would give the kids a jar of cream and it was their job to shake it and pass it around until it was butter.

    If you have an hour on the weekend and if you have a stand mixer I suggest just trying it. Start with the balloon whisk and when the peaks start forming switch to the paddle watch it because when the butter forms it happens quick and you get a big clump of butter rattling around in the mixer knocking it off balance. It takes maybe 25 minutes and then you have to wash it in ice water, mold it, then clean up. About an hour.

    • MisterTea 13 minutes ago
      In preschool our teacher bought in a jar of cream that was passed around and everyone took turns shaking it. Then we had buttered bread. I believe this was done for thanksgiving.
  • lbeckman314 10 minutes ago
    Good competition for Fatih Karakaya (@runners_pie)!

    https://www.instagram.com/p/DCuSImnocL7 (November 23, 2024)

    > Fatih is a master pastry chef and marathon runner, and he baked a Sachertorte during his marathon at the Ring Running Series at the Hockenheimring.

    > Fatih ist Konditormeister und Marathonläufer und hat während seines Marathons bei den Ring Running Series am Hockenheimring eine Sachertorte gebacken.

  • teach 1 hour ago
    This is amazing but even as a runner who loves to make my own "processed" food this really reads like a submarine article for the dairy industry.

    "I used to be vegan, but you know I just can't liveeeeeeee without that real butter!!!!!!!"

    • ok_dad 46 minutes ago
      Some people call themselves vegans but will still use animal products that they feel are ethical. Also, some vegans do occasionally use animal products just because they want to.

      I don’t think it’s a conspiracy but it’s weird that the vegan topic even came up in this article because it is immaterial to the main topic.

      • SunshineTheCat 42 minutes ago
        I think about 90% of the time veganism has come up in conversations I've been a part of, it's been unrelated to the main topic being discussed.
        • phowat 26 minutes ago
          Regardless of the vegan part the point still stands. It was also my first though reading the article before I came here to read the comments.
    • wilg 57 minutes ago
      The idea of butter being good doesn't strictly seem like it demands a conspiracy theory.
      • ssgodderidge 52 minutes ago
        The implication is that the lack of good butter made someone abandon veganism … while possible, it seems unlikely?
        • DetroitThrow 41 minutes ago
          I've known people abandon veganism (for vegetarianism) over cheese, since it's such a common ingredient in restaurant food. Butter feels a little less likely.
  • teruakohatu 1 hour ago
    > “It was probably 40 degrees outside, but there’s a lot of heat going on in the back,”

    Would this is safe to do on a sunny warm weather? Would body heat plus the sun ruin the cream?

    • cogman10 33 minutes ago
      > Would this is safe to do on a sunny warm weather? Would body heat plus the sun ruin the cream?

      It's fairly safe. You can leave dairy products unrefrigerated for an uncomfortable amount of time :) Butter, in particular, can last for days outside a fridge.

      The bacteria that tends to infest dairy products will usually (but not always) turn it into something tasty like yogurt.

      Don't get me wrong, you can definitely get sick from spoiled dairy products, but it's not a 100% thing.

    • macintux 47 minutes ago
      > This tracks with the science; according to Scientific American, room-temperature cream turns to butter much faster than cold cream because the molecules move more quickly at higher temperatures. Of course, if the temperature gets too high, everything will just melt, so their experiment probably wouldn’t have worked on a summer run.
    • KolmogorovComp 37 minutes ago
      I assume they shamelessly were talking in Fahrenheit degrees.
    • helph67 1 hour ago
      On warmer days you could swap doing the washing for food preparation!
  • rolph 1 hour ago
    the next fad fringe sport.

    seriously, if you can do butter, you should also be able to do ice cream, with some ingenuity.

    • cicdw 53 minutes ago
      There's a guy (insta: trailswithzach) that did successfully make ice cream like this
    • tekla 53 minutes ago
      Naw, you make Ice Cream on car wheels. Everyone knows that
  • bitwize 1 hour ago
    Of course she's from Oregon. This is close to the most Oregon activity imaginable.
    • SunshineTheCat 34 minutes ago
      You know, I don't mean this to be rude in any way, but what kept going through my mind as I read this was "I wonder if they drive a Subaru Outback."

      And then I clicked the Instagram link and I'm almost positive that is a hunter green Subaru Outback.

  • zby 1 hour ago
    I laughed - but I don't want more of this