This is not only a blog post about How to Make Butter at Home. It’s gonna also be a throwback blog post! Like I mean elementary school throwback. I remember being in elementary school making butter for the first time ever.
The core memory of butter making as a child
They sat us down and gave us all baby food jars to start. Then they passed around the salt and we poured a little into each of our jars. Next we got some heavy whipping cream and we filled our little jars but left some space. The magic was about to start and we didn’t even know it. But, let’s just say the magic to ever be on this planet. We were asked to put the lids on our jars tightly and just shake shake shake and keep shaking. I wish I knew exactly how long we shook for? Looking back now, I am impressed they were able to talk us kids into shaking as long as we did for some butter. After a while the butter started forming and you could see the clump in your jar. I think some people were racing to get theirs done first. Eventually we did in fact have butter in our little jars. I wish I could remember every small detail of that moment but I can’t. All I do know is that it has lived with me all these years which speaks for itself. Fast forward 20+ years later and I am finally making butter again for the first time since then.
As an adult I never had the urge to make butter knowing I would have to shake a baby jar amount forever. Definitely not worth the effort in my opinion for so little in return. So, I thought, how can I make butter that is real, cheaper and better for me than the store bought stuff? Welp, I figured it out! I decided to try my Kitchenaid Mixer with the whisk attachment and it worked! We were shocked with how much butter we had made with so little time and work.
I decided to make a huge batch because I wanted to be able to freeze it and pull out butter when I need it. Rather than having to make butter once a week or every time we ran out. This recipe makes 8-1/2 cup sticks of butter. Yeah, I know that sounds like wayyyyy too much. But, just trust me on this one. Let’s learn how to make butter at home!
Let’s Learn How To Make Butter At Home
Go and grab your big countertop mixer. Anyone will work really, you don’t need a kitchen aid mixer specifically. Ours was a wedding gift from 6 years ago and it’s still going strong! You are going to need 3 quarts of heavy whipping cream. I put in one quart at a time in our mixer. We do have the smaller kitchen aid mixer for reference and not the huge one. If you have the big one with a bigger bowl you could get away with putting 1.5 quarts or 2 quarts at a time depending what will fit. Don’t be too excited to fit as much as you can. I learned the hard way that more is not better in this situation and you will have creamer all over your cabinets, backsplash and countertops.
Pour the heavy whipping cream into your mixing bowl. Use your whisk attachment for this, it works faster than the regular beater. You will want to add your celtic sea salt before you start the mixer. Start the mixer and set to medium speed. You want it fast enough to agitate the cream and start breaking it down but not so fast that it is spraying cream all over your kitchen. Let this work its magic for about 20 minutes, check every 5-10 minutes and see where it’s at. This part is really cool to watch happen!
It’s starting to look like butter!
Once you can see clumps of a yellowish looking butter forming and a transparent milk separating from one another. You will know you have butter. Don’t worry you will be able to tell, just be patient. Get a large glass or metal bowl and fill it halfway with ice and halfway with cold fridge water. You want this water as cold as you can get it without being frozen. I like to use cheesecloth for this next step to keep all the butter together. But, you can also do this without cheesecloth by just scooping the butter out of your mixer bowl and forming into a ball before putting in your ice water bath.
You want to scoop your butter clumps out of the milk liquid and quickly just form the clumps into a nice ball. Drop large balls of butter into the ice mixture. Let sit for a couple minutes to let the butter get nice and cold throughout. Once it has sat you will want to start combining all the butter in the ice bath with your hands into one giant clump. As you are combining make sure to squeeze the excess water and milk out as you go. Periodically put your butter ball back into the ice bath for a few minutes. Remember your hands are warm and will melt the butter. The colder and more firm it stays the better. If you feel like you’ve chilled and squeezed the butter as much as you can. Repeat this process until all 3 quarts of heavy whipping cream are used up.
How to store your homemade butter
This next step is how we form and store our butter in the freezer. We like to use these Souper Cuber Silicone Freezer molds. These have made life easy with measuring and cutting into individual sticks. You are going to take one of these molds and start pressing the butter into each compartment until filled up to the 1 cup lines. Your butter should fill all four compartments in one tray. Stick your silicone tray with butter in it into the freezer overnight. The next day take out the tray and you will have solid chunks of homemade delicious butter to use when ever you need them.
This is where you can decide to leave them as is in your silicone trays or cut them into true ½ cup stick sizes. To store in individual stick sizes like we do. Pull out one chunk at a time and put on a cutting board. Get a hot bowl of water and stick a knife in it and wait a few minutes for it to get hot. Take your knife once hot and cut each chunk in half once lengthwise. You will end up with eight ½ cup sticks of butter. Use parchment/freezer paper and wrap each stick in its own piece. We like to use these pre-cut parchment sheets to make life easier. You can also buy rolls of parchment paper and cut them to whatever size you want. Store your wrapped sticks in the freezer and use them as needed.
If you haven’t already been to our Easy Beginner 4 Ingredient Bread Recipe you should. It is another great beginner recipe and will be delicious with your homemade butter! We hope you enjoyed this blog on How to make butter at home!
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Yum!! This looks amazing!!!
It really is!!!!