Whipping cream Butter

My next venture was to make butter. I got the idea from one of my best friends Chassidy and her blog. It's made from whipping cream and leaves you with homemade butter an buttermilk(which I made wholewheat butter milk pancakes with the next morning!) My pint of cream yeilded approximatly a cup or so of butter and just under a cup of buttermilk.
It's so simple:

1. Grab a pint of whipping cream and poor it into a bowl. (I used my kitchaid mixer with the wisk attachment.)
2. Whip the cream until it gets stiff, it goes thru different stages:

• A frothy milk stage
• The whipped cream stage
• A break stage:where the whipped cream looks dry
• And the break down stage:continuous whipping will cause the air cells to collapse into butter and the cream will seperate into butter and butter milk.

From this point on if you are able to cover it, do. The  buttermilk or water sloshes around in the bowl and got my counters all wet.

3. Pour out the butter milk and keep the butter in the bowl.
4. You next have to "wash" the butter.  This is because if any of the buttermilk remains in the butter it will spoil more quickly (you can skip this step if you plan to use the butter with in 24 hours, say for baking)
5. Put cold water into the bowl (you want to make sure its cool enough so that the butter doesn't melt in the water, I just turns my tap to cold and used it right out of the focet) with your butter and contiue to mix (I switched over to the paddle attachment) the buttermilk out. Empty the milky water and continue until the water drained runs clear. It took me 7 rinses.
6. Then using a dry towl you have to 'dry' the butter by pushing any remaining water out.
And viola: homemade butter and butter milk
I didn't add any salt to the butter but you can if you would like.