The Easiest Homemade Butter Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to make butter step by step? ›

Always buy heavy cream or whipping cream for churning butter. Any brand will do. You need the higher fat content. Heavy cream is approximately 40% butterfat and 60% milk solids and water.

During pioneer days making butter was primarily a child's job. They would milk the family's cow and let the milk sit in a shallow pan overnight in order for the cream to rise to the top. The next morning they skim the cream layer with a wooden ladle and leave it out to sour.

When you make your own butter, you can add just the amount of salt you prefer. (To replicate the salt level of store-bought butter, use a scant 1/4 teaspoon table salt per 4 ounces (113g) of homemade butter.)

How long does homemade butter last? Homemade butter has a shelf life of up to 2 – 3 weeks when kept in the fridge. You can also keep your homemade butter in the freezer for up to 9 months.

Just pour heavy cream or heavy whipping cream into a Mason jar, screw on the lid, and start shaking. As you keep shaking, the cream will start to thicken into whipped cream. Keep going until the cream breaks—at this point it will clearly separate into solid butter and liquid buttermilk.

Butter isn't that expensive — it's about $3 per pound at the wholesale level. Cream costs roughly $3.50 for 16 ounces, or less if you buy a larger carton. That means the price of making your own butter isn't much more than buying it in the store, and often you can get organic cream cheaper than organic butter.

After making the butter, put it in a large bowl and add honey. Once the butter has solidified and been rinsed in ice water, place it in a large bowl to mix in added flavors with a spoon. I used 1 ½ tablespoons of honey, but feel free to use more or less depending on your personal tastes.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, gradually whip the cream and sour cream together. Increase the speed of the mixer and continue whipping until the cream separates and the mixture thickens. Use a rubber spatula to gather up the butter and remove it from the bowl.

The cream from Jersey cows produces the best butter because of its higher fat content milk, plus the fact that their fat is dispersed in larger globules than milk from other types of cows and tends to churn into butter more easily.

Do you have to rinse homemade butter? ›

To finish the butter, rinse it under cool water, gently moving it around the sieve with a mixing spoon. You're rinsing off the residual buttermilk, and this is important because the more thoroughly you rinse, the longer your butter will last.

Whipped cream will turn into a heavy grainy mass. Small yellowish clumps of butter will start to appear. Keep churning until you see two distinct substances in jar: thin white buttermilk and thick clumps of yellow butter. This should take around 8-10 minutes.

Butter was first made by placing the cream in a container made from animal material and shaking until the milk has broken down into butter. Later wood, glass, ceramic or metal containers were used. The first butter churns used a wooden container and a plunger to agitate the cream until butter formed.

You can simply pour the cream into a mason jar and shake until the butter forms. You can use your stand mixer or even a hand mixer, pour in the cream, and let the mixer do its thing until the butter separates from the buttermilk.

Butter making was obviously a little more involved in the 18th century. First, cow's milk was set aside so that cream would form on top. The cream was then churned, usually in a plunge churn in which a stick (the “dasher”) was moved up and down inside a wooden or earthenware container.