Making Butter from Scratch

"I don’t care what they tell you they’re putting or not putting in your food at your favorite restaurant, chances are you’re eating a ton of butter." - Anthony Bourdain

Homemade Butter - Dall·e AI

An interesting thing has been happening recently, every time I go to the store (which admittedly is not often) and every time I buy butter (which is an even rarer occurrence), the butter always seems to be twice as expensive as last time I bought it. I'm not sure how something continues to double in price but this is the world we live in.

I've always wanted to try making my own butter but haven't had much incentive to actually give it a whirl. After realizing how expensive butter has gotten, I found myself with some leftover Heavy Cream from making Ice Cream (which you should most certainly make if you haven't). Rather than let it go bad, I threw it in the stand mixer and turned it into butter. It really is that easy.

To whip up your own butter in no-time at all, here's how you do it.

What You Need:

-Heavy Cream (or Heavy Whipping Cream)

-Salt

-Kitchen Stand Mixer

-Parchment Paper

What You Do:

1) Throw how ever much Heavy Cream you have into the Kitchen Stand Mixer, put it on medium speed. Or however fast you can get it moving without the cream splashing out everywhere.

2) Check on it in about 10 or 15 minutes

3) If you wander away from the kitchen and about 10 minutes later you start hearing a loud clanking sound. Run back into the kitchen because your cream is now butter and the stand mixer is having a very hard time continuing to mix the butter. After stopping the mixer you'll notice a pool of thick liquid at the bottom of the mixer with yellow butter all clumped together around the paddle (and/or side). The thick liquid is butter milk, save it in a jar and make some pancakes or who knows what else.

4) Take the clump of butter, turn your kitchen sink on with cold water and put the butter under the cold water (yes, you read that right). Massage it really well under the water (seriously). You're getting all the remaining buttermilk out of the butter by doing this, which will help preserve it and make it last longer.

5) Put the newly massaged clump of butter in a bowl, sprinkle some salt on it, and massage the salt in. This will help preserve the butter so it lasts longer.

6) Shape the butter into a ball or bar or whatever form you'd like.

7) Spread out some parchment paper on the counter to wrap the butter in.

8) Put the butter in the middle of the parchment paper and wrap it up just like a Holiday present.

9) Place the butter present in the fridge.

10) Now you have butter whenever you need it. Hooray!

What's happening with the cream as you mix it is the molecules start sticking together more and more, which is what allows you to make mousse, ice cream, etc. But as you keep mixing, the membranes around the molecules start getting ripped apart (which is when it starts turning yellow) then the molecules congeal further to form butter. So butter is essentially a congealed soup of cream that has been ripped apart.

If you want the characteristic bright yellow butter, then you better find a dairy farmer who allows their cows to eat boatloads of fresh green grass which allows the cows milk to become plentiful in beta-carotene, which allows for the bright yellow butter. The majority of store bought milk is going to be from cows fed dry hay or grains, which means they lack beta-carotene, which means the butter is going to be the dull yellow color.

Enjoy making your very own butter!