Butter – A Vital Ingredient

Whether you are cooking or baking, butter tends to be a vitally important ingredient. It helps crusts moisten and flake and helps your steak be flavorful and juicy. It’s so delicious, it’s often a mere accompaniment to our bagels, pasta, or bread! However, you probably haven’t had the best butter… yet! It’s much easier to make it at home than you likely thought, but it tastes so much “butter” than anything you’d find in store!

How to Make Homemade Butter

If you’re hopping on the trend of making more things fresh at home, butter’s one of the best places to start. All you need is heavy cream or heavy whipping cream. That’s it! There is no special 100-year-old starter required for a fresh loaf of bread or raw milk to make cheese. Just make a quick trip to the store! 

When making butter, you need at least two cups of heavy cream to yield ½ cup to one cup of butter. The rest will be fresh buttermilk, which you can use for some amazing buttermilk pancakes the following day. 

Due to the long mixing or churning process it takes to make butter, a stand mixer is preferred. You can use an electric hand mixer or buy a classic butter churner from Amazon. Some people have also had success using a blender or food processor. If you’re using a mixer, be sure to have a cover of some sort. Once the butter starts to form, the more solid butter will splash the buttermilk and make a big mess if unprepared! 

The heavy cream will change a few times throughout the process. Butter is classified as over-whipped cream, so it is the last stage of the process. The cream will start as a thick liquid when poured in. If using a stand or hand mixer, gradually increase speed. The liquid will begin to firm slowly. You may see some soft peaks through the whisk attachment. These peaks will become firmer until the cream starts to split. You should be at the highest speed at this point as the cream begins to look more grainy. It will split into a solid butter and liquid buttermilk at this point. 

Congratulations! You have made butter. You are not done quite yet, though.

Cleaning Your Butter

Now, you need to separate the butter and buttermilk. Grab another bowl and strainer if you want to keep the buttermilk. If you don’t want it, strain it over the sink. If you have one, you may also use a cheesecloth, but you risk losing more buttermilk in the cloth. 

Then, carefully pour the butter and buttermilk into the strainer. You want to do this slowly to avoid a mess. When the butter is sitting in the strainer and the buttermilk has drained into the bowl or sink, gently press down on the butter to remove any extra buttermilk sitting in there. 

It’s important to strain out as much buttermilk as possible. The more buttermilk remaining in the butter, the faster your butter will spoil.

Next, you will need to wash your butter. Yes, even your butter needs a shower! This part ensures you get all the buttermilk out, but you are no longer trying to save this buttermilk. This process is purely for the preservation of your butter. You can either put your butter in a nice ice bath or run it under the cold water in the sink and squish it with your hands. 

Once you feel you have gotten most of the buttermilk out, you need to dry it. You may use a cheesecloth or paper towel to squeeze any remaining buttermilk or water. For a paper towel, it is best to flatten the butter between sheets. For a cheesecloth, I recommend gathering it into a round ball and squeezing it. Once your butter is dry, add salt if you prefer salted butter, or leave it saltless. 

Storing Your Homemade Butter

If you removed most of your buttermilk, your butter should last two to three weeks if stored in the fridge. If you want to elongate its life, you should be able to freeze it for up to nine months. It is important to note that you must keep homemade butter in the fridge. This butter will not last if left on counters as it does not have any preservatives in it. That is what makes it taste so good! If you didn’t remove most of the buttermilk, the butter will sour in about one week. If this happens to you, that is ok! It is a learning process. You will get it.

 If you decide to save your buttermilk, it should last you one month in the fridge. 

Uses

Use the butter and buttermilk as you normally would. With butter, you can cook and bake and enjoy it as usual. Check if recipes call for salted or unsalted butter, and remember what you did with yours. I always keep my butter unsalted to use with any recipe. I can always add salt, but I can’t take it back. 

Buttermilk is not considered essential in your usual recipe but is useful in many things. Make delicious French toast or the best buttermilk blueberry muffins. Buttermilk is an excellent substitute for milk due to its added flavor and rise, especially for baking. You can increase or decrease your batch size depending on how much butter and buttermilk you use. I never recommend going below two cups of heavy cream. 

Homemade Butter Recipe by Mackenzie Yardley

This is Mackenzie’s personal butter recipe, which she formulated through trial and error!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavy cream or heavy whipping cream
• ¼ tsp salt (optional)

Supplies:

• Stand mixer (recommended)
  • Alternatives – blender, churner, electric hand mixer
  • Towel 
  • Strainer
  • Bowl
  • Paper towel or cheesecloth

1. Put heavy cream in the stand mixer with a whisk attachment.
2. Start on low and slowly increase speed as peaks begin to form. When peaks are visible, you should be at about 50% speed. 
3. Cover the stand mixer with a towel at this point to protect splashing from buttermilk.
4. As cream splits, you should be at max speed. In about 3 minutes, your butter is formed and separated from buttermilk.
5. Place a strainer over a bowl and slowly pour the buttermilk and butter out. Gently press on the butter to squeeze out the remaining buttermilk.
6. Under cold water or in an ice bath, wash butter and squeeze out buttermilk and water. Do this for about 3 minutes until the water seems to run clearer from the butter. 
7. Place butter between 2 paper towels and press down until all moisture is absorbed. Add paper towels as needed. 
8. Put butter in a bowl or tupperware. Add salt and mix in (optional). Add buttermilk in a bowl or Tupperware. Ensure both lids are sealed properly and put in the fridge or freezer to ensure long duration. 
9. Enjoy as you normally would – but way better than before!