Creative summer workshop - making butter like in grandma's day
A creative summer adventure for children
The Creative Summer Workshop in the Kaiserwinkl in Tyrol offers a unique program for children! With over 20 activities, there is a lot to discover and experience. Under expert supervision, children of all ages can explore exciting things. The offer ranges from family activities such as llama walks and adventures on the mountain pasture to exciting experiences such as kids canyoning and an archery workshop. We wanted to know how to make butter yourself. The workshop will take place on Friday at 10 a.m. in 2024.
Life on the Alpine Pastures Then and Now
Today, life on the mountain pastures often seems like something out of a picture book: rustic huts, flickering fires, the tempting smell of freshly baked bread and children playing carefree on lush meadows. But the reality used to be very different: getting up early, long working days and hard physical work determined everyday life. We are now standing in one of these huts and admiring the old work tools. Steffi takes us on a journey through time and describes impressively what her everyday life was really like as a child. It was often less fun than you might think. Her reports are extremely interesting, but sometimes a little too long-winded for the children, even if they are broken up by a quiz.
Milking cows and training eyesight
It takes about an hour before you leave the hut and practice milking a cow. Of course, with plastic udders. It's not that easy to get the milk (or in this case water) here. After that, your eyesight is trained. We look for small toy animals in the grass. We don't know exactly why we're doing this, but everyone obviously enjoys it. At around 11:00 there's another quiz. We try to guess various questions about cows and milk.
Exciting milk and butter questions
Want an example? How much milk does a cow give a day? A: 25 liters. And how much cream, curd, yogurt or cheese can you make from it? We don't want to tell you everything, but it's about 2 liters of cream and we make butter from the cream. In the traditional way, of course.
Making butter: An unforgettable experience
At 11:20, the butter-making process finally begins. Cream is poured into the tub and everyone is allowed to churn vigorously. It takes different amounts of time for the butter to be ready, but ours takes about 15 minutes. Steffi says that it has sometimes taken an hour. The butter is taken out and shaped by Steffi. The byproduct is strained. Do you know what the byproduct is called? We didn't know, although it's actually obvious. Buttermilk!
Of course, we sampled plenty of both products with bread, various salts, herbs and more. We can tell you, it was incomparable. Eating your own butter and drinking your own buttermilk is simply fantastic.
Conclusion and a final quiz
At the same time, another quiz is solved: “What does the Tyrolean word mean…” I can say that we had a big advantage over our German guests. Nevertheless, we only guessed about 1/4 😉 At around 12:30 we are full and the Creative Summer Workshop unfortunately over. In any case, we are already thinking about how we can make our own butter at home.
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