Professor Butter Beard’s “Woman Churning Butter”
I love butter.
There. I said it. I have always loved butter. I admire the other fats as well. Olive oil is perfect when creating a luscious focaccia. The flakiest pie crust demands lard. My vegan friends sing the praises of coconut oil. My Grandmother Zelma’s Steamed Christmas Pudding wouldn’t seduce me without the inclusion of suet. Margarine, well, it’s just margarine. But pure hand-churned butter shall forever be my Prince Charming.
As a teenager, I so looked forward to summer Mondays. The special ones always started with a much-anticipated journey with Uncle Joe to the neighboring town of Hartville and its flea market. After scouring each booth for hidden treasures, there would be lunch at the Hartville Kitchen. The Amish families that ran both the flea market and the restaurant would tempt me weekly with their glazed cinnamon breads and coconut and banana cream pies. I knew that somewhere on nearby kitchen porches there must be dozens of worn wooden butter churns, each waiting their turn to create the glorious butter used to perfect these masterpieces.
Vincent van Gogh would set out every morning while living in Etten to draw. Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith write that Vincent would strike out into the woods and heath carrying his chair, a portfolio of paper and a plank of wood. Sitting outside of farmer’s cottages and barns, he would draw so intensely with his big carpenter’s pencil that he needed the heavy plank to prevent tearing the paper. Vincent wrote to his brother Theo saying, “I must draw diggers, sowers, men and women at the plow, without cease,” in order to “scrutinize and draw everything that is part of country life.”
He scoured the farms of Etten searching for human models. Working first with laborers in the field, he later invited himself into farmhouses to draw women at their chores. Utilizing the ample daylight streaming in from the windows, he would pose them with their tools such as a broom, or in this case, a butter churn. It is believed that chose to draw them from the side to avoid the challenges of foreshadowing. “Anyone who has learned to master a figure,” he wrote Theo, “can earn quite a bit.”
Thank you Vincent for capturing this honest country moment. Butter. It just makes everything better.
Buttermilk Pound Cakes with White Chocolate, Cranberries and Ginger
3 Loaves (eat one, freeze one and give the third to a friend!)
Loaves:
12 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups white sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature
4 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp ground ginger
1 Tbsp kosher salt
1 ½ cups buttermilk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 12-ounce bag of white chocolate chips
1 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
½ cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped
Ginger Syrup:
1 cup water
¾ cup white sugar
2” knob of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into ¼” disks
1) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
2) Spray three 8-9” loaf pans with cooking spray and line with parchment paper
3) Divide the white chocolate chips in half and melt half in a small ceramic bowl in your microwave. Microwave on High in 20 second intervals, stirring after each time. Set aside to slightly cool.
4) Whisk together the flour, baking powder, ginger and salt.
5) Stir the vanilla into the buttermilk.
6) Cream the butter and sugar in a standing mixer 1-2 minutes until butter is light and fluffy. Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs, 1 egg at a time. When eggs are fully incorporated, add the melted and cooled white chocolate.
7) On low, add 1/3 of the dry mix, then half of the buttermilk, 1/3 of the dry mix, remaining buttermilk and finish with the final 1/3 of the dry mix.
8) Off the mixer, fold in the remaining white chocolate chips, the chopped cranberries and the chopped crystallized ginger.
9) Divide the batter between the three pans and bake 50-60 minutes until golden and set and an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean.
10) While the cakes bakes, stir together the water and white sugar in a small pan and bring to a simmer on low heat. Add in the sliced fresh ginger and let simmer 5 minutes. Take off the heat and let cool to room temperature. Leave the ginger in the syrup as it cools.
11) When the cakes have cooled for 15 minutes, lightly brush the syrup over the cakes (while they are still warm in their pans).
