The Dairy

Appears in

How to Cook The Victorian Way with Mrs Crocombe

Published 2020

About

The dairy at Audley End, with its shallow bowls used for settling cream at the start of the butter-making process.

It was unthinkable in Victorian Britain not to cook with butter, although lard and dripping were more common lower down the social scale. The kitchens got through anything from 9 to 13 kg (20–30 lb) of butter a week, plus cream, milk and other produce from the dairy.

Milk would be delivered to the dairy twice a day after the morning and evening milking sessions. It was put into settling pans to allow the cream to rise to the surface; the cream was then skimmed off. The skimmed milk that resulted was sometimes used in the kitchen or was sold to the local villagers. Being from cows with very-high-fat-content milk, it was not as anaemic as modern skimmed milk and was rather tastier, but still lacked the body necessary for many of Mrs Crocombe’s recipes.