Take the mystery out of making your own homemade butter from scratch using just one ingredient.
You put it on toast, you drizzle it over popcorn, you use it as a cooking oil. Butter is the potatoes of fats and oils. It can be used for practically any dish you can dream of. If you are like us, you’ve probably wondered how to make your own butter from scratch. Your first idea of how butter is made maybe was an image of someone sitting at a butter churn using a giant wooden plunger to stir cream until it turned into butter. It sounds like a long and arduous process. However, like with all things, technology has allowed us to advance and make basic tasks much simpler. And because of that, we can talk to you today about how to make your own homemade butter from scratch.
You can still make your butter the traditional way (and believe us, we want to make at least one batch the traditional way), but keep reading for our simple, easy-to-make butter recipe that combines elements of the traditional churning methods with modern equipment.
What is butter?
To start, let’s spend some time talking about what butter even is. Butter is traditionally in the same family as milk, cheese, and cream. Despite typically being made from cow or goat’s milk, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture remarks that butter is technically not a dairy product because of its high fat content and low calcium level compared to the other members of the milk family. But what about the process of making butter? The scientific explanation is long and fascinating. The short version of it is that to make butter, you shake/stir cream until the butterfats in the milk or cream have separated from the rest of the milk and solidified.
Why would I want to make homemade butter?
There are many reasons to want to make your own homemade butter. We wanted to learn how to make butter as a way of becoming more self-sufficient. Making homemade butter can also give you more control over what preservatives and additives are in your butter, allowing you to have a more natural, fresh-tasting butter. Something important to most people is that it can be cheaper to make butter yourself depending on where you get your butter from and what kind of butter you get. Most recipes we have found compare homemade butter to the cost of organic and grass-fed butters since those are generally the higher-quality types of butter. Plus, when you make homemade butter, you get buttermilk as a by-product, which is another ingredient that can be used in all sorts of baking.
How do I make homemade butter?
Making butter at home couldn’t be simpler. All you need is an electric blender or butter churn and heavy cream. For this example, I’m using an electric stand mixer since I (sadly) do not have a butter churn. Just pour your heavy cream into your bowl, turn your stand mixer to its highest speed, and let it run!
You’ll need to push the sides down every now and then to ensure you don’t have whipped cream on the sides and butter in the middle. After anywhere from 3-10 minutes you’ll notice that you now have this rich yellow solid (your butter) and a liquid (your buttermilk). You can turn off your mixer and strain out your butter. To strain out the butter, place a lump of the mixture onto cheesecloth over a mason jar (we use a wide-mouthed jar for the sake of ease.). Then, you squeeze the mixture down until all of the liquid has drained out through the cloth. Inside your cloth will be a ball of butter that you can mold into whatever shape you want. Repeat this process until there is no more mixture to separate.
What is the liquid left over after making butter?
When you make butter, you will be left with a solid and liquid. That liquid is buttermilk. I highly recommend saving your buttermilk for future recipes such as buttermilk pancakes or cornbread. If you want your buttermilk to have a bit of the standard tang, you can add a tablespoon of lemon juice to it. Or if you prefer going the traditional route like I do, let your buttermilk sit out on your counter with a cloth over the lid overnight.
How to store homemade butter?
I highly recommend keeping your homemade butter in either your fridge or freezer. I don’t recommend keeping it on your counter in a butter dish or French butter holder since it doesn’t have the preservatives that store-bought butter has. We don’t salt our butter because of how much we bake, but feel free to add it to your butter. Adding salt can help you to achieve a certain flavor. Salt also serves as a preservative and will extend butter’s shelf life. Salted butter can even be left out for a time if you want to use a butter dish or French butter holder.
Butter troubleshooting
Patience is key.
We’ve heard it said by a few people who have shared their own homemade butter recipes; trust the process. As the cream mixes, it will turn into whipped cream. Then, it will disintegrate into a liquid. When this happened with our first batch, we thought we had ruined the butter and would need to start over. But after letting it sit for a little while longer, the liquid mixed back into the solid. It might take longer to mix depending on the temperature, the milk or cream used, and even the humidity. Just keep mixing until it solidifies, and you’ll be good to go!
What kind of cream?
We recommend heavy whipping cream, preferably organic for an even creamier butter. The general rule is the more fats in your milk, the richer your butter will be.
Easy Homemade Butter from Scratch
Our homemade butter recipe has probably the simplest list of ingredients we've discussed on this blog: Heavy whipping cream or organic whole milk and salt (if you want salted butter).
Ingredients
- 16 oz. Heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 tsp. Salt (optional: if you want salted butter)
- Stand mixer or butter churn
- Cheesecloth
- Mason jar
Instructions
- Pour 16 ounces heavy whipping cream into electric mixing bowl.
- Set the mixer to the highest level and mix for 10-15 minutes or until the butterfats separate and solidify.
- Occasionally push the cream buildup down from the sides of the bowl to ensure the cream mixes evenly.
- Once the butterfats have separated and solidified, turn off the mixer.
- Place a cheesecloth over a mason jar (we use wide-mouth jars, but standard-mouth jars work just as well.).
- Grab a handful of the mixture from the mixing bowl and place it onto the cheesecloth.
- Then, wrap the cheesecloth around the handful and squeeze it downward to filter the buttermilk through the cloth and into the jar.
- Once the buttermilk has been squeezed out of the handful, remove the solid butter from the cheesecloth and set aside.
- Repeat Steps 6 through 8 until all of the butter has been filtered.
- Finally, mold your lumps of butter into whatever shape you desire.
Notes
If you're looking for a perfect recipe to make with your new stick of butter, check out our roasted garlic mashed potatoes recipe here!
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