Homemade Butter The Easy Way
Learning how to make homemade butter is simple and easy and once you eat fresh delicious butter, you’ll never want to go back to eating butter from the grocery store. In this tutorial I’ll show you the easiest and quickest way to make your own butter at home without any special equipment using a simple recipe that I’ve been making for years. And the best part is that the whole process only takes a few minutes to complete.
Cost: 1
Equipment
- 1 milk strainer
- 1 milk filters
- 1 food processor
- 1 mixing bowl
- 1 stick butter mold
- 1 wooden butter molds
- 1 electric butter churn
Materials
- Raw cream or heavy whipping cream
- Salt
Instructions
- Place heavy whipping cream into food processor with the chopper blade. Don’t fill over halfway to allow room for the cream to expand as it’s whipped.
- If you choose to make butter in a stand mixer, pour cream into the bowl of a stand mixer, and use the whisk attachment. Just remember to watch it closely because when the butter breaks it can make a big mess sloshing the buttermilk out of the mixer. That's why I prefer to make butter in a food processor.
- Close lid tightly and process on high until cream separates into butter and buttermilk. Before the butter breaks from the buttermilk, the cream will go through the whipped cream stage where stiff peaks will form on the top of the cream. Keep going, it hasn't broken into butter yet. Once it fully breaks, you will be able to see the yellow clumps of butter fat floating in the buttermilk.
- Remove the blade from the food processor. Scoop out the butter and place into a medium sized mixing bowl. You can also pour the butter and buttermilk through a fine-mesh sieve placed over a bowl to catch the buttermilk and separate it from the butter.
- Pour buttermilk into a jar to store in the refrigerator.
- Repeat the above steps if you have more cream to turn into butter.
- When all the butter is made, take your bowl of butter to the sink and start gently working it while running very cold water through it (see video below). Do this for several minutes until the water runs clear and all the buttermilk has been washed out of the butter.
- Squeeze as much of the water out of the butter as possible. You can also work the butter with a paddle or wooden spoon to remove any excess liquid if desired. I find that it’s just fine without that extra step.
- Add salt to taste, starting with about ½ teaspoon per pound of butter. Mix well.
- If you'd like to make unsalted butter, be sure to store your butter in the refrigerator as the salt in the butter acts as a preservative.
- Place into butter molds and refrigerate, or just leave in a bowl on the counter to use in all of your cooking.
- You can also wrap clumps of butter in parchment paper, plastic wrap or other airtight container and freeze for later use. Butter can be frozen for 6-12 months.
Video
Notes
Tips For Making Your Own Homemade Butter
Let your cream sit out on the counter and come to room temperature before mixing. It will break into butter and buttermilk much more quickly. If you accidentally let your cream sit out on the counter too long and it starts to culture and turn into sour cream, you can still use it for making butter. The butter might have a bit of a sour taste depending on how well you rinse the buttermilk out. If you don’t like the taste of it as much as you like the taste of sweet cream butter, just use it in baking. It will be just fine. Save your buttermilk in a mason jar in the refrigerator and use it in place of milk or water in all of your baking recipes Wash your butter in cold water really well to make sure that all the buttermilk is out of it. This will help it stay fresh for a long time.