Slatter this homemade butter on bread, toast, baked potatoes, etc. Step by step pictures.
For a while now I have wanted to try making homemade butter. I remember making homemade butter at some point in elementary school. I think we each got a little baby food jar full of cream and we got to shake it and shake it and shake it some more until it finally turned into butter.
Well, this way you can have homemade butter a little quicker and without tiring your arms with just the use of a KitchenAid or food processor. I used my KitchenAid because I don’t have the best food processor (but now I’m wondering if my magic bullet would have worked too). Anyway, it was a fun process to watch the cream first become whipping cream and then eventually turn into butter (and buttermilk). And it’s even fun for you because I took step by step photos every minute so you too could see how the cream changed over time.
A lot of other tutorials online say that it can be done in 10 minutes or less, but for my cream to become butter it took 15 minutes. And I have a high powered KitchenAid too. But near the end I did lower the speed to keep it from splashing me in the face too much, whereas if you used a food processor you wouldn’t have to do that as much because of the lid, or if you have a splash guard for your mixer.
Anyway, like I said, the cream goes through stages it pretty quickly thickened in to whipping cream after only about 2-3 minutes, then, for me at least, it stayed mostly in that stage for the next several minutes. It got slightly thicker, but not much so at about 10 minutes I put on my beater blade so that it could scrape the edges as it mixed a little better. Then it started to get a little bit lumpy and curdly like cottage cheese and the buttermilk slowly started to separate off and then the last minute it just got thick and there was a huge puddle of milk in the bottom. Like I said, I really enjoyed watching the step by step process of it.
Then even after it separates into butter and buttermilk you aren’t quite completely done. You now have to drain the buttermilk of course, but then you have to get the excess buttermilk out as well. I did this by squishing my butter around with a few pieces of ice. I drained it again once there was enough then squished again, and repeated until nothing was really coming off anymore.
I then had to enjoy my fresh butter so I tossed an English muffin into the toaster and once it was done I slathered it with that delicious fresh butter.
Because I had been wanting to make homemade butter for a while I bought some heavy cream just for this purpose, but this would be a great way to use up extra cream left over in your fridge from making ice cream, or truffles or whatever.
I used one cup of heavy cream and it made 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of buttermilk.
Homemade Butter
Ingredients
- 1 cup cream
- salt to taste (optional)
Instructions
- Pour heavy cream into your mixer.
- Turn your mixer on low speed and gradually raise it to high speed.
- Keep mixing until your cream breaks and separates into butter and buttermilk (You may have to lower the speed slightly to this point to prevent sloshing)
- Once your butter has solidified and is sticking to your mixer blade, pour off your buttermilk into a separate container.
- Scoop your butter into a bowl and add a few pieces of ice.
- Press your butter with a rubber spatula or spoon, draining off the water as you go. Keep going until no more water is coming out or your water runs clear.
- If desired, mix in about 1/8 tsp -1/4 tsp salt.
- Store wrapped in foil in your fridge. (It will keep for a couple weeks to about a month depending how much of the buttermilk you got out)
Enjoy your fresh homemade butter on top of bread, baked potatoes, etc.
(I don’t know how this would do to replace regular butter in a recipe because the texture is so different – if anyone knows, please tell me)
Tina Butler says
I make 1 pound butter in about 10 minutes using my stand mixer and 1 quarts of cream. They Key is to let the cream container sit out at room temperature for about and hour before whipping. The colder the cream the longer it takes.
Diane says
This took WAY longer than I thought! I used a whole quart of cream though- maybe that was why?
I’m so glad I came across your recipe though- the other ones I found said ten minutes and I thought for sure I screwed up somehow!!
Ellen says
Comparing a whole quart of cream to 1 cup of cream it will take a lot longer to make butter. I am glad you didn’t give up though. I am also glad you found us.
BruCrew Life says
How fun that you took photos every minute! It’s so cool seeing how it changed. I might just have to make some homemade butter now! 🙂
Aimee Berrett says
Yes! Its fascinating to watch – your kids might even like it!
jamie@kreyv says
Ok, for some reason I was picturing a churn…this, I can totally handle!
Amber @ Dessert Now, Dinner Later! says
This is a fun thing to make with the kids! They like to watch how it changes.