How to Make Butter at Home

First, let me say that butter is super simple to make. Ridiculously simple and foolproof. Everyone has seen pictures of great grandma slaving away at the butter churn, sweating buckets. From that we’ve all picked up the idea that butter is hard. Making butter manually is a bit tiring, though not exhausting. But making butter using a mixer, blender or food processor is easy peasy and not the least bit tiring. If Granny was making all her own butter without the help of modern tools we can make all our own butter too if we choose. At minimum all you need is a supply of cream. If you don’t have any of these tools you can still make butter with just a jar and some vigorous shaking.

How to Make Butter with a Stand Mixer

I’m using my Bosch Universal Plus Mixer to make my butter. I love this machine! It’s a mixer, blender and food processor all in one. Today I’m using the mixing bowl with the whisk attachments. I love it for it’s large capacity. I can make about 2 lbs of butter in about 20 minutes with it. This recipe though will make roughly one pound of butter depending on the butterfat content of your cream.

Ingredients:

• 1 quart of good quality cream
• a bit of sea salt, ground fine

Tools:

• Stand Mixer
• Whisk attachment
• Shallow bowl
• Rubber scraper

Instructions:

• • Get your mixer all setup with the whisk attachment attached.
  • Pour the quart of cream into the mixer bowl.
  • Attach the plastic protector to the bowl. This is really important! When the butter separates the buttermilk will fly! If your mixer doesn’t have a plastic protector cover for the bowl you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap like this.
  • Turn the mixer to high speed
  • Watch the bowl now. You’ll notice the cream getting thicker and kinda clumpy, a little like cottage cheese. After a few more minutes the cream will suddenly explode into buttermilk and butter. Don’t worry you won’t be able to tell. You’ll see the buttermilk sloshing around in the mixer, splattering the plastic. Stop the mixer at this point.
  • Pour the buttermilk from the bowl into a separate container. Mark it with the date and save for baking.

And this is the butter ball …

• If you like your butter salted this is the best time to add it it.
• Mix the butter on low for just a few seconds to mix the salt in.
• Pour the butter out into a shallow bowl.
• Form the butter into a ball. Press the ball to squeeze out any excess buttermilk. Since I add salt prior to this step I don’t save the little bit of buttermilk that squeezes out.
• Put the butter in a container and refrigerate.

Quick and easy with a mixer!

Making Butter with a Blender or Food Processor

I haven’t made butter with a blender or food processor but it looks about as quick and easy in these tutorials.

• Using a blender to make butter – Food Renegade
• Using a food processor to make butter – Solar Family Farm
• Another good photo tutorial using a food processor. – Heavenly Homemakers

And if you don’t have any of these appliances …

Making butter will be a little harder but still eminently doable. In this tutorial they are making a lot of butter using only the jar shake method.

• Jar butter photographic tutorial – The Mobile Home Woman