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Making Butter

It is easier than you think!

You really can make delicious, real butter using store-bought heavy cream. It is simple to do at home using an electric mixer, blender, or food processor; shaking in a jar; or even with some bread machines.

The way I make butter from store-bought cream is to pour the cold, heavy cream straight from the container into the bowl of my stand mixer. Then I turn the mixer to its lowest setting and let it run 10 or 15 minutes. I run a scraper along the edge of the bowl to make sure the outer edge gets all mixed in. If you have a high quality mixer you may not need to do that.

After you have passed the whipped cream (stiff peaks) stage, stop the mixer every few minutes to look and see if you see the whitish milk (actually that's the whey), flowing. If it all looks lumpy and yellowish but there's no whey yet, then it is not done. If in doubt you can use a spoon to gently push the mixture to one side of the bowl and tip the bowl a bit. If you don't see definitely whitish whey flowing away from the mixture it is not butter yet. Keep on mixing and check again every few minutes.

Once you see the whey flowing (and you have finished cheering), gently push the butter to one side and pour out as much whey as you can. (Save the whey to use in recipes, or to drink. It is not true buttermilk since we didn't start with soured milk.) At this point I have found it easiest to hold a small mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the butter in gently. Let it drip a bit to get rid of as much whey as possible. Now I put the butter into a rather steep sided glass bowl and I use a wood spatula to push the butter against the side of the bowl while tipping it a bit to help the whey pour off. I pour out the whey, then pour in a little really cold water. I mix the water a bit into the butter, then mash the butter against the side of the bowl to squeeze out the water/whey. I pour off this liquid into the sink, add more water, and do it all again. Once you add water and mash the butter but get no whitish liquid you have finished. Pour off the last of the water, add salt, if desired, and stir it in. Now you have delicious butter!

To store my small amounts of butter I put some in a tiny bowl in the fridge to use, and shape the rest into small logs and roll up in wax paper to store in the freezer.

 

More about making your own butter:

 

My 10 Minute Butter:

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