Old School Science – Butter Bell Edition

Ever since hearing about a seemingly amazing contraption known as a butter bell, I had been on the hunt for one to add to my kitchen collection.  I don’t remember how I heard about the butter bell, but I felt it would be the perfect addition to kitchen counter and perfect for joining the ranks of my salt pig, porcelain cow creamer thing and vintage blue canning jars. 

Boy was I right!  After months of searching, I found this treasure randomly in the little cookware store in the North Market.  I snatched it up right away and then began to wonder how the thing worked exactly.

I knew it would work, given its time tested seemingly lack of spoiled butter.  But how?

This curiosity, and in response the questions and comments on a recent Facebook photo, caused me to do a little research.  Here goes!

Turns out, there is a lot more science here than I had originally thought.  Even though I have Bachelor’s of Science degree from the best school in the world, I have to say, science isn’t my strongest suit.  I mean, I passed and all (well, technically, I think I failed chemistry, but yay for curves) but I have never really been confident in anything other than basic science.

The butter bell is two pieces.  One piece (the lid) is for holding the soft creamy butter and the other piece is what looks like a cup, for holding water.  Why water you wonder?  I wondered the same thing.  When the cup lid is placed in the water, the water creates an airtight seal (I can’t see this since my butter bell is blue, but I trust it anyway) therefore keeping oxygen away.  Despite my lack of genius science smarts, I do know, and you know, too, that oxygen destroys food.  Neat, huh?

Welcome to the kitchen collectibles family, butter bell!

Controversy also surrounds this old school gem.  It was likely first created in France, but none can seem to agree on the city. IDK – I wasn’t there.  I’m just glad someone created this little treasure.  I love it for being old school and for keeping butter soft and fresh.

Millions of peaches – peaches for free.

My mom and dad have a great peach tree.  I mean, it wouldn’t win any prizes if it were being judged, but it yields amazing peaches.  Best around, I’d say.  So last summer on a visit home, I couldn’t help but rescue every ripe peach hanging from its branches.  Last summer I really got into canning.  And while I really got in touch with my inner Sophia Pitrillo while doing tomato sauce, juice, salsa and more from yummy tomatoes, the peaches were something all my own.

I won’t take you back in time to the exact basics of how I went about canning these peaches for off season months, I hope to have new stories to tell later this summer.  For this story, it’s just important to know that I had several jars stowed away under my counter for days in which I would inevitably crave sweet summer peaches.

The truth is, until I found a simple looking peach cobbler recipe in The Complete Southern Cookbook – another awesome library checkout, I hadn’t much interest in the peaches other than admiring their beauty (despite the fact they didn’t place in the Brown County Fair – ugh!).

So here’s the scoop.

As usual, this was a simple recipe - just a few basic ingredients to make a batter for the peaches.

My beautiful peaches that should have taken a Best of Show ribbon at the fair. 

Now this is where it starts getting intense.  Don’t get grossed out, but I had to melt two sticks of butter before adding the peaches and batter.  Oh how Paula Deen would be proud.

OK little peachies – off for a swim in butter and batter before oven time!  I simply spooned the peaches on top of the butter, then put the batter on top (it sank).

Ahhh looking nice and tan.  Just like a trip to the beach.

Even though delicious, it was hard to get a nice picture of my masterpiece.  So I scooped it out into smaller containers.

Already for co-workers to taste!  All the samples were taken, so I guess they all liked it!

I’ll make this recipe again.  I still have several jars of peaches to use before the next canning adventure starts!  Now, I’m moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches – you sing the rest!