Recipe 70: Whipped Vanilla Butter

Wow: This is where the challenge starts getting a little pricey. Its not bad, but I'd forgotten to take the vanilla bean I'd bought some time back, so I had to buy two new ones. The good news is, I either have vanilla beans for the next recipe that needs them, or I can get some whiskey and cure my vanilla early this year for better flavor and less worry of running out before Christmas;-).

The other challenge: getting your best friend to do what she's told when she lacks your perfectionistic qualities in the kitchen. Kitchen, sewing room, it never works. You tell her what to do, and she goes behind your back and does it her way while you are frying the chicken and really shouldn't leave the stove. Allow me to explain.

The Whipped Vanilla Butter recipe is right beneath the buttermilk waffle recipe in the book. They both call for a lot of butter, 8 and 12 T. I had gotten out a bowl and put the vanilla seeds into as directed. I added the unsalted butter and the dash of salt and pressed and worked the butter with a fork until it was of reasonable consistency. The butter is supposed to be at room temp. for this. I should have waited a bit, or left the butter out overnight. I didn't.

When I realized I forgot 4 of the Tablespoons of butter, while I was frying chicken, I asked Andrea to add it for me and mash it or whip it with a fork or electric beater. She decided against the beater since we hadn't dirtied it yet and worked with the fork for five seconds, maybe ten-I'm sure she'd tell you it was a couple of minutes. The minutes on the stove did not change. She announced she was going to the microwave. I announced I prefer to do this as I'm told. She informed me she believes in cheating. I asked her to keep it to ten or fifteen seconds. She said longer, but did not disclose and I was busy frying chicken-or attempting to. I don't know how long she microwaved it for, but I conceded that the butter was cold and she was helping.

It turned out very good anyway. And we survived to cook another day.

One day, when I can toss $10 at two vanilla beans without a care, I will make this recipe again, for these waffles. In the meantime, it will depend on how bad I want the waffles, and I have a fair amount of left over butter.