Make Your Own Homemade Butter

You Will Need

2 Cups Heavy Cream or Manufacturing Cream

Sea Salt {optional}

Pitcher of Ice Water

Stand Mixer

Wire Wisk Attachment

Beater Attachment

Splash Guard or Hand Towel To Cover Mixer

Yield: 2 Cups Heavy Cream =  8 Ounces Butter plus approximately 1 Cup Buttermilk

To begin, the heavy cream should be between 60°F and 65°F so it will separate quickly.  Per the instructions, I used one cup heavy cream at a time.  Begin with the wire whisk and mix until it forms firm peaks.  I set my mixer on medium high so it took maybe two to three minutes to reach that point.   I would suggest you cover the mixer with a light hand towel or splash guard while it mixes or you will have cream/butter splatters everywhere.  Once you get to firm peaks, the cream will begin to separate.  Slow the mixer down at this point and mix for about 15 more seconds.  Remove the wire whisk, shake off any separated cream/butter and replace it with the beater blade.  This step is important because otherwise getting the butter clumps out of the whisk could be difficult.  Beat the butter on slow speed for about 15 to 20 seconds to let it finish separating.  Using a spatula, squish the butter into a lump in the bowl and pour the resulting buttermilk into a jar to use later for baking.

You now have butter but you need to wash it to get all the buttermilk out so it will keep longer, especially if you like your butter at room temperature.  Add some ice water to the bowl and beat on low for about 15 to 20 seconds.  Use the spatula to squish the butter into a lump and pour the water off.  Keep repeating this process until you get clear water, about three or four times.  The final wash is done by hand…add the cold water and squish the butter with your hand to see if you can get any more milk out.  Pour that water off and continue to squish the butter around to squeeze out any water that may be suspended in the butter.

If you would like to whip the butter, put it back in the bowl and beat on high for a minute.  If you want salted butter, add about ¼ teaspoon sea salt per cup of cream while it is whipping.  I suppose you could add other spices at this time as well {garlic, Italian seasonings, etc}.  Whipped butter will spread easier and melt faster however if you use it for baking, you can’t measure it by volume, you must measure it by weight.

That’s it…you now have homemade butter.  The entire process took maybe an half an hour….a lot of that time was spent cleaning the butter off the beater blade in between each washing.  I think I will get the hang of this after doing this again and again and it will take less time.  The instructions I followed indicated it took approximately 9 minutes to do each cup…I was at approximately 15 minutes each cup.   Two cups of cream made 8 ounces of butter and approximately a cup of buttermilk….maybe a little more….I’m eyeballing what is in my jar because I forgot to measure that.  It was noted that the ultra-pasteurized cream will produce a butter that lasts longer than using simply pasteurized cream…although the pasteurized cream versus ultra-pasteurized may have a better taste.

If you would like a printed copy of this, click here.  You can also visit the web site I discovered and view a video of these instructions.