Homemade Butter for the Holidays
Butter is ridiculously simple and fun to make by hand. I love the process because somehow, by the magic or by physics, you turn a liquid (cream) into a solid (butter) without any change in temperature! But I’m getting ahead of myself….
To make butter, all you need are 2 things:
- Heavy cream (whipping cream works too)
- A jar with a tightly fitting lid
That’s all! What could be simpler?
Let me pause for a moment to talk about price. I bought a 16 oz bottle of heavy cream from Monument Farms for $1.26. The butter I produced weighed 8 ounces, plus I got buttermilk. To make a pound of butter I would buy 2 bottles of cream for $2.52. A pound of Cabot butter costs $4.69. So it's almost half as cheap to make your own butter, plus it's fresh!
So back to the actual butter making process: Leave your cream on the counter for several hours before starting. Room-temperature cream turns to butter much more easily than cold cream.
Pour the cream into the jar and shake the jar vigorously for 10-15 minutes. The cream will turn to whipped cream. Keep shaking.
All this shaking can be a good activity for the holiday table – a friend once brought jars and cream out as we sat around munching on appetizers before Christmas dinner. It was a great party trick and conversation piece and we had fun doing something simple with our hands and making part of the meal at the same time.
I’ll be honest; the shaking process can take some time. If you get tired of shaking or want to save the elbow grease, use a food processor with the blade attachment. I’ve also heard that an electric hand mixer will do the trick. Do not use a blender (don’t get me started on what a frustrating experience I had with this one!).
You’re done shaking when the butter solids separate from their accompanying buttermilk. It will look like this. If it doesn’t look like this, keep shaking (or keep your food processor running).
Pour the whole mixture into a piece of cheesecloth (fine woven is best here) with a bowl or glass measuring cup beneath. Squeeze the cheesecloth to press out the buttermilk.
I’ll pause for a moment to extol this buttermilk: you buttermilk can be saved for baking or some people like to drink it straight up. The buttermilk from this process is authentic: most commercially available buttermilk is ‘cultured’ which basically means they use straight skim milk and add a bacterial culture to make it into a buttermilk-like liquid. What you have just created is true buttermilk.
OK, back to the butter.
At this point, when I’ve squeezed out all the buttermilk I can out from the cheesecloth ball, I like to take the ball of butter in my hands and start to knead it in my palm under cold running water. I know this sounds strange but it really works – kneading the butter helps get out all the buttermilk while keeping the butter cool enough that it doesn’t just melt in your hand. If you skip this step, your butter won’t last as long – the buttermilk acts to spoil the butter more quickly by some chemistry that I don’t even pretend to understand.
When you no longer see white drops of buttermilk emerging from the butter, you’re done! At this point you can knead in salt if you want a salted butter.
Butter can be frozen for long-term storage but I bet there won’t be any left after your holiday celebration!
Meanwhile, here's an idea for what to do with your buttermilk:
Buttermilk Pancakes
1 ½ cups rolled oats
2 cups buttermilk
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2 eggs
Butter for greasing the
skillet
Combine rolled oats and buttermilk in a medium mixing bowl the night before making pancakes. Stir together and leave, covered, on the counter overnight. The next morning, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt and add to oat mixture. Beat in eggs. Butter skillet and cook pancakes until golden and puffy on each side. Serve with maple syrup and fresh berries.