Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/379

Rh and then you may be sure that the buttermilk is all worked out; for, if there be any of it left, the butter will have streaks of white when cut, and will not be sweet. Having worked out the milk, the next thing is, to put in the salt. The quantity must depend, in some measure, on taste; some persons like their butter very much salted, while others think that the flavour of salt should not be distinguishable in fresh butter. Roll it quite fine, and you may allow ½ lb. to 5 lbs. butter: press the butter out thin, sprinkle over it some salt, fold up the butter, press it out again, strew over more salt, fold it up again, and so on, till all the salt is in, work the butter about well, to mix the salt with it, and pour off whatever liquid there may be in the pan. Take the butter out, a piece at a time (if the quantity be great), on a square wooden trencher (previously scalded and dipped into cold water), and, either with the hand, a fresh cloth, or a flat, thin piece of wood (made for the purpose), beat the butter out thin, fold it up, beat it out again, and repeat this several times, till the water is all beaten out. By the time it has arrived at this latter stage, it ought to be quite firm, except in extreme hot weather, when no pains are sufficient to make it so. When the water is all out, make up the butter, in what form and size you choose; place it on a board, or a marble slab, in a cool place, but not before a window, as too much air will not benefit it; spread over it a cheese-cloth, first scalded, then dipped in cold water, and it will harden in a few hours.

Different parts of England vary so much in the butter they produce, that what is considered very good in one county would be regarded as inferior in another. This is caused by difference in the pasturage, and not by variation in the mode of preparing the cream or making the butter; except, indeed, in some parts of the West of England. In Devonshire the cream is always, I believe, prepared according to the following directions, which were written for me by a Devonshire lady.

Spread a linen cloth in a large bason, pour in the cream, tie it up like a pudding, fold another cloth over it, and bury it in a hole two feet deep, in light earth, put all the earth