We are huge fans of making butter at home. Making your own butter is so fast and so easy that we often make small batches of table butter for maximum freshness and taste. But we've also been making extra-big batches lately, which is easy in the KitchenAid. Here's how (and why!) we've been making butter in the stand mixer.
On our visit to Snowville Creamery a few weeks ago, we learned that cows stop producing so much cream in the winter. In fact, for a month or two after Christmas, Snowville can't guarantee any cream deliveries at all. This is because the cows take a short vacation from milk production, and even though there is an alternate hay-fed herd that will provide Snowville's winter milk, this cold-weather production is usually very low in fat.
We realized that it would actually be smart to use up some of the surplus summer cream, which is extra-high right now in fat and protein, and convert it into butter — which can be frozen for long periods of time. And we are actually saving some real dollars doing this; Snowville sells their cream in half gallons, each of which will give you over two pounds of butter, plus the skim milk left over.
Of course, we're not going to make butter every day just to save a bit here and there. But Snowville's cream is just so good, and it makes such brilliantly yellow butter (we didn't Photoshop the color in these photos at all!) that we felt it was worth it to stock up a few pounds of butter in the freezer.
This is also a great way to use up any extra cream you might have in your fridge; just throw it in the mixer or food processor and blend. The KitchenAid is especially helpful when making pounds at a time. We usually just do a cup or so in our mini-chopper, which makes just enough butter for toast and bread for a week. But when doing pounds of butter, you can do it all in one batch in the KitchenAid.
A quick refresher on the stages of making butter from cream:
• Put whole cream into a blender, food processor, or mixer, and whip it on high speed. It will initially whip up into whipped cream. Then the whipped cream will get thicker and thicker, like whipped butter. Don't stop here though!
• After 2-10 minutes, depending on the speed and strength of your machine, there will be a sudden change when the milk fat and solids separate out dramatically, leaving thin liquid behind. Beware of this, if you're using an open mixer; if you're mixing at high speeds, suddenly liquid will appear from nowhere and start spitting out of the bowl. If you're using a food processor you'll hear a "slap slap slap" as the butter suddenly forms up and whizzes through the thin buttermilk.
• After this, it's very important to drain away all of that buttermilk (which is really just skim, watery milk) and squeeze the butter under running water until all traces of milk have drained away and the water runs clear. Otherwise that leftover milk will cause your butter to go rancid within a few days. Squeeze it as tight as possible and rinse it well. Then pack it into an airtight container or into some plastic wrap, and freeze.
That's all there is to it! We just made two quarts of cream into a pound of good butter, using our KitchenAid. It took about five minutes, and cream that was at the end of its shelf life has a new use. Next time we're trying cultured butter!
Have you ever made butter?
Related: Do You Have A Good Recipe For Homemade Butter?
(Images: Faith Durand)
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Do you squeeze it in cheesecloth or just press it? Is the "skim, watery, milk" skim milk?
I second the cheesecloth question.
Cultured butter can be very good, rich and pungent -- but it does have a very distinctive flavor, and (imo) doesn't taste good when used to cook things at high heat, or in sweets -- just as a word of caution.
And I'll second your caution to wash your butter well! We used to get our butter from local farms when I lived in PA, and quickly figured out which farms sold clean butter, and which didn't. You could have a whole pound of expensive raw cream butter from grass-fed cows go into the trash because they did such a crappy job of washing the buttermilk out.
I don't use cheesecloth; I hate washing it! I just press the butter between my hands and run it under water until the water runs clear and the butter is well-packed. In olden days people use two wooden butter paddles to do this.
The milk that comes off the butter is traditional (not cultured) buttermilk that can be used in baking or for drinking. If you want cultured, tangy buttermilk you'd have to make it by adding a little yogurt or buttermilk culture.
The last time I made butter was in first or second grade where we all took turns shaking a jar of cream with a clothes pin in it (or something like that).
This sounds so easy and a great way to use up extra cream, which I tend to end up with whenever I have any that I've used for baking.
Thanks for the info!
Thank you so much for posting this Faith!
It has reminded me of one of my earliest memories... watching my grandmother wash and salt butter with her wooden paddles and flat wooden bowl.
Oh the nostalgia! :)
My mother has told me before that I used to help my grandmother churn the butter but I don't remember that part.
There are two things this post has inspired me to do:
-Make butter (but with my KitchenAid, no hand churning for me!)
-And to try and emulate my grandmother's delicious molasses jam cookies...
Me too, violetcassis! I remember utter amazement at the jar experiment. I don't have a KitchenAid. Maybe I'll try it in a jar again.
What a fascinating post! I've always thought of making butter as this arduous process involving standing over one of those wooden butter churns forever. I had no idea it could be a reasonable thing to do at home!
my cousins love to shake up butter in a tupperware - no need for a glass jar to go flying across the kitchen ;)
(can you tell i'm accident prone?)
i don't like the idea of squeezing butter in my hands since they'll be so greasy. ick. any other method?
I use ice cold water to wash the butter in. That way it is not all soft and squishy and the milk/ buttermilk washes right off as it does not harden like the butter. As a child I used to help my Indian grandmother make butter and it was one of my favourite things to do with her.
So how do you make cultured butter? Also, to make salted butter, do you just add salt to the cream?
Joan,
You can smash the butter against the side of a bowl with a wooden spoon or spatula so that the liquid can run out of it (tip the bowl so that the liquid runs out into the sink or something); add cold water and smash it more until the liquid that runs out is clear.
pure coincidence I just read about winter butter? http://www.doriegreenspan.com/2009/10/a-butter-tip-sheet-a-recipe-for-brioche.html
Smallkitchcara -- cultured butter is butter made from cream that has been allowed to "ripen" slightly --- until the cream reaches 3%-4% acidity. This usually works best with unpasturized cream, since pasturized cream just goes bad, and doesn't actually ripen. You can also buy a culture if you don't have access to raw cream.
The butter at most American grocery stores is sweet cream butter, while cultured butter is more common in Europe.
We have been making butter from snowville cream for about a year now. We love it! We even gave it as Christmas presents last year (with a little grey salt on the side).
I made butter and brought it to a potluck recently. It took my friends a few minutes to figure out exactly what it was. None of them had ever had fresh made butter. I made a convert of them all. I make butter weekly in my food processor. So easy. I also love my butter bell (or any of the other names for them). Its really nice having room temperature butter that is perfectly spreadable. It's definitely important to wash the butter if you use a butter bell. I've not had poorly washed butter go bad in the fridge.
Cultured butter is made by adding yogurt culture to warmed heavy cream. It's just like making yogurt with live cultures.
Let it sit in a warm place for a few hours till it sets. And then refrigerate. Use this to make butter the same way as making with heavy/ whipping cream. Tastes tangy and yummy.
I would love to make this butter! I'm just wondering what kind of cream do i use for this. Whipping cream, coffee cream? Also how would one make salted butter, is it just as simple as adding salt to the butter?
I always use heavy whipping cream and whip it until it goes to butter. Of course, the cream I get at the grocery store is crappy quality. But add a little honey after its done for honey butter - or add a little salt for salted butter.
Better yet, add herbs and make compound butter!! :D
WHAT! I had no idea you could make butter so simply. I am most definitely going to start - how amazing is this? Thank you!