How to Make Fresh Butter
ByIf you recall, last week when I showed you how to make mozzarella cheese, I mentioned that if you’re making it from raw milk, you skim off the cream and save it to make butter. HERE is one way to make butter!
Fill your food processor 1/3 full of heavy cream. Be sure not to fill it more than 1/3 full…it will probably not turn into butter if there’s too much in the container.
Turn your food processor on high…and then flee the room. (It’s really loud and annoying!) The food processor will whip and whip and whip the cream until it turns it into butter. It should take somewhere between 8-15 minutes.
Once the fat has been “pulled out” of the cream, it should look something like this…and you can turn off the food processor.
Pull all the solid pieces and squish them together.
Place the solids in to a clean bowl.
Run some clean COLD water into it.
Clean the butter with the cold water by squishing it with a wooden spoon until all the liquid comes out of it. Repace the cold water 2-3 times as you clean it.
Squeeze the excess water out of the butter and shape it with your hands.
Ah, look…a lovely little butter ball.
You can add salt to the cream if you want salted butter…this will also be a preservative, making the butter last longer.
OR…if you don’t have a food processor and want to have a little family fun…put your cream into a jar and shake it like crazy. Pass the jar around, and take turns shaking it. (I’ve tried shaking it all by myself once when no one was around to help…and I thought my head and arms would fall off from shaking the jar so much all by myself. I don’t think I ever got butter out of that jar.)
Have you ever made butter before? Isn’t it COOL to see the butter form out of the cream!?
I LOVE how with just one little gift from a cow (or goat or whatever) you can make SO MANY great yummy things!
P.S. Even if you don’t have fresh cream…go buy some heavy whipping cream at the store and try making butter. It’s just…cool.
Next week…RICOTTA CHEESE! :)
(Join us Saturday for the little Green Project!)
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we want to make large qty butter from cows milk your advise please
regards
s.krishnamurthy, BANGALOR, INDIA
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I have been doing this a couple time now, and wondered what on earth to do with the lovely left over liquid, so I did some research… it is buttermilk! Did you know this?? :)
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Laura Reply:
January 12th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
I’m a little unsure on this myself. It is buttermilk, but it is much thinner than what I use as regular buttermilk. I use it in baking in place of milk after I have made butter.
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Katie Reply:
December 29th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
There are two different types of buttermilk, the kind that comes from making butter and cultured buttermilk, the kind that you know from purchasing in stores. The buttermilk made as a result of making butter is excellent in home-made pancakes and biscuits. Hope this helps!
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Katelyn, I used the ‘shake in a jar’ method and was taken by the appearance of the leftover liquid when the ball-o-butter had formed. It looked like whole milk, so I tasted it. It had so much more flavor than store-bought Vit D whole milk, I drank the whole thing. I’ve heard the liquid can be used to make pancakes, biscuits and more.
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Katelyn Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 12:42 am
After I found out what it was, I started saving it in a bottle in the fridge and make biscuits with it when I have enough saved up. I love the “use the whole cow” mentality, or in this case, all the cream :)
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I read the salt preserves it longer but do you know how long the unsalted butter would last? maybe as long as the cream would last?
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Laura Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 7:58 am
I would say unsalted would probably last about two weeks.
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Katelyn Reply:
January 13th, 2012 at 12:44 am
I’ve also noticed when I do remember to add salt to the food processor, it seems to make the butter form up a bit faster, and when I don’t add salt (because I forget) the process takes longer and my food processor actually quits on me! Has this happened to anyone else?
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Coriena Reply:
March 19th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Am wondering how much salt to cream? Also will this butter freeze,
and is the left over cream after the butter is taken out the first
time.. is that now skim milk?
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Jennifer Reply:
May 11th, 2012 at 6:36 am
I am not sure about how much salt to add to the butter, I would say add to taste. But I freeze store bought butter all the time with no problem with it once it’s thawed.
Awesome, it is so easy!!! and tastes way better than any store bought butter out there…I’m and going to attempt the mozz. cheese next but you can’t beat homemade butter especially knowing it is this easy…
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Being raised on a dairy farm all of this is what we did everyday. Kinda fun to do it sometimes know.I have frozen the butter it came out like fresh made.
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I’ve just found your website…love it. Seriously love the idea of whole food my kids will love.
We homeschool too, and did a unit on the “Little House” books. It was a blast to make butter with the kids. Here’s a tip that makes it loads of fun for a group of kids. Let them shake the jar while jumping on a trampoline…also works for making ice cream. We had butter and ice cream and the kids had a fun work-out!
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When we make butter we use an old fashioned butter churn!
This is how we keep the children occupied on rainy days during re-enacting season. One person would not want to do this it is a lot of work.
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Hi there! I have been here many times, but happened to catch on to this pin from Pinterest. What caught me was the firmness of the butter ball (tee hee hee! that sounds so silly to me!)
I have made milk from our raw cow’s milk shares many times, but the flavor rarely meets my standards. I am letting it set out a la Weston A Price/culture standards, or at least I was. I am not ready to go along with cultured butter, though, no matter how much healthier it might be. Sigh…
But the thing is, is that I just can’t seem to get all the milk out! I use out Hamilton Beach food processor and once it’s got that first “milking” as we call it, we pour that out and save it, then begin adding cold water (we don’t use ice, becuase we don’t make ice) to work in with the food processor. I have begun going that several times until is runs pretty clear. Still, I have never been able to actually form the ball in my hand. I will admit to doing it once, naively thinking that it would just … happen! Guess how that turned out! lol! I have used paddles and bamboo flat spoons to try to squish it out, but I just. can’t. get. it all out!
How do you get it to that point?
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Laura Reply:
April 18th, 2012 at 5:24 am
Yes, I have a hard time getting all of the water out too. I usually find that working it with my hands works best for this.
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Amber Reply:
May 21st, 2012 at 9:20 am
I am having trouble with the liquid part too. my butter was so soft I
lost a lot of while trying to squeeze the water out. I used the jar
shaker method, tried a blender but the cream was getting very hot and
so was the blender. Not sure what I am doing wrong.
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I made this butter today, used my mixer…took me a little over 10 mins…..I did not run cold water over the butter, I just kept mashing the butter against the bowl,until I got all the water out….then salted it and put in a container…had some today with my dinner on rolls and it was really good….I have a good cup of milk left from the butter, which I will use in my cornbread tomorrow….
My question is, why do you have to wash the butter ??? I didn’t and it came out fine……
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Melanie Reply:
May 10th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
I have heard that the butter doesn’t last as long if you do not rinse it, beause the “buttermilk” makes it spoil faster. It’s not harmful, it just doesn’t keep as long.
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
June 2nd, 2012 at 7:03 pm
It gets all the water out of it when you wash it.
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Sorry I meant to say I just kept mashing the butter against the bowl, until I got all the milk out…….
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Has anyones butter come out sour? We have grass fed cows (they mostly free range off our land but are supplemented with a bit of hay). I’ve tried making butter several times over the year but the butter has a wierd distinctive sour smell and flavor. This being made with fresh raw milk. I’m not sure if it makes a difference but I was taught to but the cold cream in the butter mixer and then set that in a hot water bath and then blend for 25 min or so. I wonder if that has anything to do with the smell/flavor? That is really the only difference from what you are doing. What do you ladies think?
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Jamie Garcia Reply:
September 17th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
My butter doesn’t break unless it’s cold. Breaking is what it does
suddenly when the fat separates from the buttermilk.
Here are some helpful sites:
http://www.cheesemaking.com/Butter.html
http://familycow.proboards.com/index.cgi
I’ve also been told by my father that if the cows are eating certain
types of weeds it can make the milk taste nasty for a bit until
it’s all out of their system.
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Just made homemade butter for the first time and also my first real “wholesome/homemade” food product… OMG it was AMAZING! I’ve never been happier to have my hands covered in butter :P
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Is there any other way to shape the butter other than a ball? Just curious if anyone has shaped it differently. If a recipe calls for a certain amt (tbsp) of butter, do you just sort of wing it?
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
December 14th, 2012 at 11:33 am
You could probably shape it however you want. It doesn’t have to be a ball. :)
I would use a liquid measuring spoon to measure it out. Just make sure to pack it in.
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