My beloved Milk Lady recently sold her calves, so my weekly gallon of milk has been coming topped with a full quart of cream. Which is a lot of cream. This weekend, I had about a pint of cream left from last week when looking at my new delivery, and so, I decided to make butter. I found this terrific tutorial over on Saveur which was very helpful. I used my trusty old KitchenAid, and while I’m sure one isn’t supposed to make whipped cream before making butter, I did discover that the gorgeous Jersey cream whips up beautifully. The butter doesn’t have any color added — that’s just what color the butterfat is — and so now I have a little less than a cup of lovely fresh butter. Yum.
cmf
I'm a writer and editor based in Livingston, Montana. I moved to Livingston from the San Francisco Bay area in 2002 in search of affordable housing and a small community with a vibrant arts community. I found both. LivingSmall details my experience buying and renovating a house, building a garden, becoming a part of this community. It also chronicles my efforts to rebuild my life after the sudden death of my younger brother, and closest companion, Patrick in a car wreck.
7 Comments on “Homemade Butter”
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Consider leaving at least some of your butter unsalted. We are living in North Africa and all the fresh butter is unsalted. We are finding out how much better this is for a variety of baking.
More than once I’ve accidentally turned my whipped cream to whipped butter by looking away from the KitchenAid for 20-30 seconds too long, so you’ll get no guff from me if whipped cream is one step on the way to butter. :^) If only my cream was as fresh as yours!
I have used my KitchenAide to make butter a couple of times. I think the whip cream stage is just a natural part of using this method. I found with the mixer that alot of the rinsing and squishing was unnecessary since the mixer got most of the liquid out on it’s own. I would just pour off the liquid and run the solids through the mixer again and repeat until no liquid came off. I don’t know if that method is culinarily acceptable or not but my family thought it tasted good on toast and that is all I really care about. 🙂
Now you just need to mix in a little honey or citrus rind for a real treat. :>
How delicious, and healthful! According to the book (and movement) Nourising Traditions (westonaprice.org) butter is great for you.
Mmmm…butter is one of my favorite things. I’m quite envious. The only non-commercial dairy animals we have around here are goats (well, predominantly) and I hear it’s difficult to make butter from goat’s milk, since the cream doesn’t readily separate.
Oh you are so good to make butter! I do what Kristi J mentions….make in the Kitchen Aid. I use the whisk attachment to churn then switch to the beater to wash it.
If you have ripened your cream first (particularly with a mesophilic culture) then run it through the Kitchen Aid with the whisk, stop it when it is really nicely whipped but not butter and you’ve got the BEST sour cream. Oh, and warmer cream will not go through that whipped stage. 68-70 degrees works well for me in the winter. Try 62-64 in the summer.
And the yellower the butter, the higher the Vitamin A content. Once upon a time, people knew that yellower butters and cheeses were healthier. This would be why (unscrupulous) dairymen would dye it with annato.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor!