Have you ever made homemade butter? If not, let me be the first to tell you how easy it is to make deliciously creamy, homemade butter. It only takes 1 main ingredient and you will have homemade butter in no time. And let me also add, it is quite impressive to serve when you’re having guests too!
How do you make homemade butter you may ask?
Butter is simply heavy cream that has been churned, or whipped until the fat and the buttermilk begins to clump and separate. You then actually have two products. First the butter which is the fat and the buttermilk. And as we both know, buttermilk is good in a plethora of baked goods.
There are a couple of ways that you can make butter. I personally always choose the quickest way. I love homemade but I want to do it in the fastest yet authentic way possible. The first way, and the way that kids like the most is with simply a mason jar. You fill it halfway with the heavy cream and you shake shake shake like your life depends on it. Or the butter. When you’re done with this process of making homemade butter, your arms will feel like jelly and may be sore the next day but you will have the most creamy, delicious result. My son loves doing this, and so I let him. This process if shaking continuously takes 30-40 minutes.
My personal favorite way of making homemade butter though is using a mixer. You can go for the hand held mixer or the stand mixer. Guess which one I choose?!? Of course I chose a stand mixer. It allows me to put the butter on and do other things while its solidifying.
I have this Kitchenaid 6 quart that I absolutely love. I recently found out that I can send it in to Kitchenaid and they will switch the plugs over to whats compatible in Italy so I won’t have to rebuy it. This thing is a machine that lasts a lifetime so I am grateful that they have this option available.
Let’s get started making our homemade butter
To make it, you will simply need to add the heavy whipping cream to a mixing bowl, turn the mixer on medium low and just let it go until you notice it thickens.
Thats the ONLY ingredient!!!
2 cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
There will be stages that the heavy whipping cream will go through. The first stage is it actually becoming whipping cream. I had to fight the urge to dip a fresh strawberry in it at this point. The next stage is simply a thicker whipping cream. Then we go to something that more so resembles whipped butter. Super thick. Not quite whipped cream but not yet butter. At this point, I turn the mixer up.
If you aren’t standing over the mixer you will want to listen for the change. It will go from really thick mixture to you all of a sudden having a loose, liquid mixture. At that point if it starts splashing outside of the mixing bowl, return it back to medium low and let it go. It will go from a loose, liquid mixture to what looks like curds. The very next stage is where those curds seem to be floating in a milky water. This is the point to stop the mixer.
What you now have on your hands is both homemade butter and butter milk.
Take a spatchula and pull the butter together into one ball. At this point you should easily be able to life the butter from the butter milk. You now have homemade butter.
Tips, tricks and insights for making homemade butter:
- Once the butter is done. It is good for 3 days refrigerated or on the counter at room temperature. If you take an additional step here and put the butter in a strainer, running cool water over it to rinse the butter milk off the outside of it, your butter will be good for 7-8 days refrigerated or on the counter at room temperature.
- Once you remove your homemade butter from the buttermilk, you can either choose to put it into a dish and be done or season it at this time. You can simply add salt for amazing salted homemade butter or for razzle dazzle you can add other herbs. Today I made rosemary and thyme salted butter. Its simply chopped rosemary and thyme as well as salt, mixed in well. If you choose to rinse the buttermilk off the butter, add the herbs after the final rinse.
- I know using milk is tempting for making homemade butter. It will not work though. Milk does not have a high enough fat content to make butter.
How much homemade butter does this recipe make?
The general rule of thumb is half. This recipe calls for 2 cups of heavy whipping cream. That will yield you 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of butter milk. If you brand of whipping cream has a higher fat content, you will end up with more butter and less butter milk.
What should you eat your homemade butter with?
Anything you want darling! Anything you want!!!!
I woke up this morning wanting to make homemade butter with rosemary and thyme so I didn’t prepare far enough ahead of time to make a crusty French bread so I dug into my southern roots and pulled out cornbread. My son is such a lover of cornbread so it is always welcomed in my home.
Here is a quick video of the different stages the whipped cream goes through before becoming butter.
