Today we have with us, all the way from Wisconsin, the delicious family-focused food adventures of Mom In Madison’s Denise Cusack who also writes up her foodie ways over at Cook.Eat.Think

I really dig Denise for so many reasons and absolutely L-O-V-E her take on getting her little people involved in every aspect of food, from growing it to creating tasty treats with it.

We’ve been itching to make butter with some whole goats milk discovered for sale recently at a local farm. So, I’m totally excited to see how our adaption of this great tutorial (and scone recipe) flies at our house.

Here’s Denise:

Making butter is the perfect family kitchen adventure.

It is one of those fun projects that the boys just love, and one that we do often. Since we get farm fresh milk, we love using it fully.

So making our own buttermilk and butter in just 15-20 minutes is great-especially when it will be used in a fresh scone recipe! YUM.

It is so easy, really!

And, combine it with homemade scones made with fresh butter and buttermilk, well, it’s absolutely perfect.

For my scone recipe, I need 10 Tbsp cold butter and 3/4 cup buttermilk. So, we started with 1 3/4 cups of heavy cream in a quart mason jar. Add 3 marbles. Screw on the lid tight, and start to shake.

We like to put on some fun music, and let the boys dance around shaking the marbles in there as the music blasts.

We all take turns shaking – lots of fun.

After 15-20 or so minutes of shaking it will start to get thick – keep shaking. Suddenly it will separate – you will know when it has happened.

Drain the buttermilk to use in your recipe. Then take that fresh butter, rinse it with cold water, and smush it around on a cutting board with a wooden spatula to get out the excess buttermilk. How much butter vs. buttermilk you get depends on the cream, so will vary. This made us almost 10 Tbsp of butter and plenty of buttermilk to fill our 3/4 cup recipe requirement!

So now that you have fresh butter and buttermilk, you have to try our awesome scone recipe!

Now, for those scones:

fresh currant scones::

2 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup steel cut oats
6 Tbsp raw sugar (you could also use rapidura or honey)
3 Tbsp ground flax
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
10 Tbsp chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces (make your own fresh butter!)
1/2 cup currant mix (see below)
3/4 cup cold buttermilk (make your own buttermilk)

Preheat the oven to 375ºF

In a bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, flax and salt. Using a pastry blender or a fork, cut the chilled butter into the dry ingredients until the dough is crumbly. Fold in the currant mix (see below). Add the buttermilk and stir lightly with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together to form a ball. (The dough will be sticky, but don’t overwork it – you want a moist tender scone!)

I like to use scone pans. It keeps me from overworking the dough and also creates nice child sized neatly shaped scones – which is good for my picky eaters. If you have a scone pan, at this point gently scoop the dough into your greased scone pan (I like using coconut oil). Gently smooth.

If you don’t have a scone pan, no biggie. On a lightly floured surface, pat the dough into a large circle about 2 inches thick. Cut the dough into wedges. With a spatula, transfer the wedges to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

If you like, before baking brush the top of the scones with cream and sprinkle raw sugar over the top to add a bit of sweetness.

Bake for 22 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack. Best served warm – we ate ours with the strawberry freezer jam we made a few weeks back. Oh so good.

currant mix:
Currants tend to be very tangy and tart. To sweeten them a bit and break the berries down to smaller bits throughout the scone, I like to make a quick blend to use in the recipe:

3/4 cup fruit…I used fresh red currants (with a few gooseberries)
1 tbsp honey

In a skillet heat the fruit and honey for a minute on high to bubble. Take off of heat immediately, smash fruit a little with fork. Scoop out into a bowl right away to cool. Use this mix in the scones!

Photos Courtesy of Densie Cusack.