Homemade Butter

There’s truly nothing better than fresh butter! While we didn’t grow up on raw butter, my mom did make fresh butter for our family as I grew up. Now that we have raw milk, it’s taken our butter to a new level of delicious.

There’s several different ways to make butter: a churn, a food processor, a mixer, a shaking jar. We’ll highlight just the food processor and stand mixer methods. A food processor is a faster method than a stand mixer and causes less mess in my experience, but a stand mixer works as well.

Growing up, we never used to cold water wash our butter. It would always get a funky taste pretty quickly if not frozen right away. This is from the remaining whey in the butter. Kneading the butter under cold water wash helps get all the whey out therefore removing the spoiling taste from the butter.

You don’t have to salt butter, but in my opinion, salt makes everything better. Plus, it helps preserves the butter! But you do have to try some fresh butter on a cracker. Take my word on this. It’ll change your life.

Homemade Butter

Ingredients:

• Raw cream (I’d at least try to have 1 cup of cream to make butter)

• Salt to taste

Instructions for food processor:

Put the cream in the food processor. Process it on high until chunks form and the butter separates from the milk. The timing will vary on a variety of factors such as thickness of the cream, amount of milk left in the cream, the stage of lactation the cows are in, and the time of year. In the food processor, my mom said it did the “butter dance” where you can see on the outside of the processor the thick chunks of butter bouncing up and down. Sometimes it takes upwards of 5-10 minutes. When butter has formed, follow the rest of the instructions on draining, rinsing, and salting the butter.

Instructions for stand mixer:

Put the cream into a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Start out beating the cream on low and increase the speed as the cream thickens. Beat it past the point of whipped cream. It will eventually separate with butter chunks and milky whey left over. The timing of this will very due to different factors: how thick the cream is, how much milk was left in with the cream, the stage of lactation the cows are in, and the time of year. It can take upwards of an hour. When you have butter solids and buttermilk separation, move on to the instructions on draining, rinsing, and salting the butter.

Instructions for draining, rinsing, and salting:

When your cream has separated into butter solids and whey, strain it over a bowl. Save the whey for recipes if desired.

Take the butter and put it into a bowl with ice water. Knead the butter in the ice water to release the whey that’s in the butter. Replace the ice water with fresh water regularly until the water no longer comes out milky.

Take the butter out and salt it to taste. Knead the salt in. Place it in a container to store. It will last longer in the fridge and will freeze quite well! Enjoy!