Homemade butter
Mar 17th, 2008 by Jill
Brownie Points posted a tutorial last week on how to make your own butter. Gavin and I tried it this weekend. It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in the kitchen.
You whip heavy pasteurized (but not ultrapasteurized) cream using the wire whisk attachment on a KitchenAid mixture. You whip it until it turns into whipped cream, and then just keep whipping until it breaks down into little yellow bits of butter in buttermilk. Pour it into a cheese-cloth lined bowl, squeeze the buttermilk out, put the butter in one jar and the buttermilk in another.
Two pints of cream makes a pint of butter and a pint of buttermilk.
This is pretty handy, because I make this chicken finger recipe about once a week for the kids, and it uses just about two cups of buttermilk.
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Update: This buttermilk doesn’t come out quite as thick and rich as the buttermilk I’ve been buying from the store, so the chicken finger recipe didn’t turn out as well as it usually does this week. I think I’ll stick to store-bought buttermilk for chicken fingers. The butter, on the other hand, is great.
did you salt the butter or leave it unsalted? was it good?
I left it unsalted (we usually get unsalted butter anyway) and it’s great! It tastes just like regular butter. Except I made it! Which is pretty exciting.
It’s neat that you can make it in a KitchenAid mixer! I have made butter by shaking it. It’s good exercise, but tiring work!
How wonderful!
Oh I’ve been wanting to try that! A friend of mine in another city made some from fresh cow’s milk/cream. It was heavenly!
very intriguing! i’ll give it a go after finals!
Oh, yum!
Sometimes it’s disturbing just how totally disconnected from the food-making process I am. Until I read this post I’d sort of forgotten that you can make butter. I just thought it magically appeared in my grocery store. I love this post and your latest one about baking bread — I’d love to reconnect with some of the basic foods I eat by learning how to make them from scratch.
Thanks for sharing!
Buttermilk from the store is cultured. I think that’s why it’s thicker. I usually use the leftover buttermilk from making butter milk in soup or bechamel. It works really well for those, but not for a recipe where you need the reaction of the acid in cultured buttermilk.
I love homemade butter!