How to Make Butter

Until I had done it myself, I would have never imagined how easy it is to make your own butter.  All you need is some heavy cream, a little salt, and a mixer and in a matter of minutes, you have fresh homemade butter.  From there, you can obviously add things like honey/cinnamon, garlic/herbs, etc. to make flavored butter spreads.  For today, we stuck to the basic, lightly salted butter.  It was a great learning opportunity for Annalyn - we talked about what goes in the bowl (cream, salt), where cream comes from, what we do to the cream to make it into butter, and what we call the liquid that comes off when the butter forms (buttermilk - pancakes, anyone?).  Emma liked to be picked up to see each step, too, but her favorite part was definitely sampling the end product on saltine crackers (and later our homemade crackers.)  Here's how Mama makes fresh, creamy, 2-ingredient butter:

Homemade Butter

 

Ingredients:

- 2 c. heavy whipping cream

- 1/4 t. salt (optional)

yields:  1 c. butter plus 1 c. buttermilk

Directions:

 

1. Place cream and salt in a bowl and beat with a mixer on medium-high.  Keep beating past the stiff peak stage until butter begins to form.

2. Pour out the buttermilk (save for baking), then add cold water and knead the butter pieces together.  Rinse with water until the liquid is no longer cloudy to make sure all the buttermilk is gone. Buttermilk left behind will cause the butter to sour.
 

3. Wrap butter in wax paper and refrigerate until ready to use. 

printable recipe