Hello friends! It has been a fun and busy week! We are just one week away from my daughter’s very first ballet dance competition. I’m just trying to make sure she practices every day, and is able to be so prepared, that she can just have fun at the competition. She seems to be very excited! I’m so proud of her! I have no idea where she gets her confidence from, because you would have never found me on stage by myself in front of tons of people at that age. She just amazes me!

Something that we started looking into this week, is trying to make foods and snacks from scratch at home. We are getting ready to start some seeds inside for our garden this spring. I am hoping that we will have a lot of of yummy vegetables to harvest this summer and fall. Last year was our first year of gardening, and it went somewhat well. I think I am now more prepared for this year. We will see!

This week, I saw a post on Facebook of someone mixing up their own butter. That sent me on a search on Pinterest, where I found a fun experiment for kids. It is so easy to make your own butter, and a lot of fun! Before I show you what we did, take a look at the updated picture of my daughter’s rocks in the rock tumbler! This was the result of 6 days with grit #2.

Make Your Own Butter!

When I saw this post on Facebook, I had no idea it was so simple to make butter. It is so delicious too! We will be making our own butter from now on! Also, you will have your own buttermilk when it is all done too. You can make so many things with butter and buttermilk!

What You Will Need:

• Heavy Cream (high in fat)
• Container with sealed lid (mason jar)
• Wooden spoon
• Bowl
• Cold running water

Step 1:

The first thing that you need to do is to find a container to shake your heavy cream in. The heavy cream we had left at home was already in a bottle, so I just used that. A mason jar would be easier to get the butter out of when you are done. We made the heavy cream bottle work though. When you pour in the heavy cream, you want no more than half of the container full. Then you can put the lid on tightly! Make sure it will not leak!

Step 2:

Hand the container to your child, and have them shake it! Keep shaking it! This may take a while! My daughter and I passed it back and forth as our arms got tired. This can take around 10 minutes depending on how fast you are shaking the container. At some point during those 10 minutes, you will notice that it feels like there is no longer any liquid shaking around. If you take the lid off, you will find whipped cream! Take a quick taste, put the lid back on, and keep shaking!

Step 3:

Soon you will start hearing liquid splash around in your container again while you are shaking it. You will notice a ball of butter starting to form! Shake it for a minute longer to make sure you have all the butter formed that is going to form. You don’t want to over shake it, or your butter could curdle. This is what your container should look like at this point.

Step 4:

Now it is time to remove the lid and separate the butter from the buttermilk. Yes! That liquid is buttermilk now! Go ahead and pour out the buttermilk into a bowl, keeping the butter in the container. Next, scoop the butter out into a separate bowl. We want to rinse the butter off now! If you leave the buttermilk on the butter, it will go bad rather quickly.

To rinse the butter, you hold the bowl under slow cold running water, and knead it with your wooden spoon. You can do this with you hands as well. Kneading it just helps to make sure you are getting all of the buttermilk out of the butter. Rinse it until the water is clear.

See how easy it is to make your own butter! Pour the buttermilk into a sealed container, and store it in the refrigerator. The butter should also go in the refrigerator if it is not going to be used right away. It will last for around 2 weeks in the refrigerator, or you can freeze it for longer storage time.

If you want to bake something with your butter, leave it as is. If you plan on using it as spreadable butter or cooking with it, you can add a small amount of salt or other seasoning to it. I left it alone, because I wanted to make some buttermilk biscuits with my butter and buttermilk. This butter tastes so much better than store bought in my opinion. If you love it too, you can make your own butter with a stand mixer from now on!

Buttermilk Biscuits

I only had enough butter and buttermilk to make a few biscuits, so I found this simple buttermilk biscuit recipe on Pinterest. It turned out great, and went so well with our dinner! Check out the recipe below!

Quick & Easy Buttermilk Biscuits (Small Batch)

One thing to know before making these biscuits is that your buttermilk needs to be room temperature, and your butter needs to be cold. I just took my buttermilk out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before needing to use it.

When you go to mix the butter and dry ingredients, it says that you need a pastry blender. I just used a regular blender, which seemed to work. I didn’t have pea sized chunks of butter though. It was very finely blended, but the biscuits still turned out great.

If you don’t have a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter, then use the rim of a glass cup. I just dipped the glass in flour, and cut out each biscuit. It worked out great!

While the biscuits bake, add whatever seasonings you want to what is leftover of your butter. The best part about being able to make your own butter, is making it taste however you want. For these buttermilk biscuits, I just put a pinch of salt in and mixed it together. Maybe next time, I will add something else to it.

Once the oven beeps, and your buttermilk biscuits cool just a bit, it is time to enjoy them with your dinner! I hope you have fun when you make your own butter! It sure is exciting to bake something delicious with your very own butter and buttermilk!

The Risen King!

Our Bible lesson this week has been the story about the risen king. You can find it in the Schoolhouse Teachers Bible Adventures curriculum at https://schoolhouseteachers.com/school-subjects/bible/bible-adventures-class/ref/119608/. This is one of those stories that you can read over and over again, while being in awe of our amazing Savior.

Jesus was placed in a tomb, with the stone rolled in front of it. All who loved Him, were mourning the loss of their friend and teacher. He promised them though, that He would rise again on the third day. He promised, and His promise came true. Jesus will always keep His promises. He will never give you more than you can handle. It took Jesus dying, and rising from the dead for people to believe that He was actually the Messiah. It would have been so amazing if people would have believed Him without Him having to die, but it was His Father’s plan. Jesus had to die, so that we could be saved from our sins. He is our wonderful Savior, and what better thing to be grateful for every day of your life.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:3

Go into this week holding onto this great act of love that Jesus Christ did just for us. Remember that He is love, and He is the one true Savior. Share this story with your children, and sing along to the song below. Have a great week!