Why buy butter when making it at home is so easy? Homemade butter is rich, creamy, delicious, and surprisingly simple to make with just one ingredient! I’ll show you how to make butter from scratch, step by step, without any fancy equipment. It’s an old-fashioned kitchen skill that’s easier than you might think. Save this one and give it a try!
Somewhere around 2012, I discovered the magic of butter. Not margarine; real, creamy, full fat butter. Fat is flavor and real butter is one very quick change you can make to your cooking that is not only healthier – yes, really – than margarine, but will also take your cooking to the next level.
But real butter is expensive so when I switched to raw milk, and was paying $6.00 per gallon, I new I needed to stretch it as far as I could. Luckily for me, full fat raw milk is too rich for my stomach so instead of wasting all that beautiful cream at the top, I learned how to make butter and began to make it plus other things like heavy whipping cream, sour cream and homemade yogurt with it as well.
How to Make Homemade Butter
Once we made that switch, I began really looking at how much I was spending at the store. That led to me replacing everything I could with a homemade option. Not only did I save over $2500 in a very short amount of time, but we were also eating healthier and more nutritious foods, dealing with fewer toxins and generally felt better overall.
Learning how to make butter was one of the first things I added to my list of things I simply stopped buying back then and it’s still one of my favorite – and easiest – things to make years later!
Creating Flavored Butter Recipes
Making your own butter recipe opens up so many possibilities! They’re so easy to customize right from the start which makes it super simple to create a flavored butter like THIS strawberry butter or THIS blueberry butter. Both are amazing on toast, muffins, or pancakes, by the way and whip up in less than 10 minutes for easy mornings.
Want to make homemade honey butter? Make homemade butter then add honey! Garlic and herb butter? Add black pepper, garlic, salt or whatever other fresh herbs that tickle your fancy.
It’s your recipe and that means you are free to experiment and create as you see fit. Your taste buds will guide you on the seasonings.
How does making butter work?
All butter – real butter that is – starts out as milk. Okay, it starts out as a milk by product.
Cream. Real, thick, delicious, heavy cream. Yes, the same thing cream you make homemade whipped cream with.
I love my Copycat Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo recipe, but a girl can only eat so much authentic Alfredo sauce without gaining 100 lbs.
Can I Use Regular Milk to Make Homemade Butter?
As I said, all butter technically begins as milk. This means your homemade butter will being one of two ways:
Either as raw milk that you will need to remove the cream from
or as heavy whipping cream from the store.
If you have raw milk and need to remove the cream, you can learn how to do that HERE.
However, if you have pasteurized milk from the store, it has already had the cream removed and will not make butter. In that case, you’ll need to buy heavy cream. Make sure you get heavy cream not half and half. They are not the same thing.
Before you make butter though, make sure you have allowed your heavy cream to come to room temperature. Your butter will form much easier.
Making Homemade Buttermilk
Another reason that I love making homemade butter?
Homemade buttermilk!
Buttermilk is a the natural byproduct of making butter so when you make homemade butter, you get buttermilk!
It’s a twofer and a win-win situation for anyone looking to save money and eat a more natural diet!
Why Do You Have to Rinse Homemade Butter?
The reason you have to rinse homemade butter is because no matter how much you let it drain, it will still have buttermilk in it.
This buttermilk residue will cause it to go rancid.
The more buttermilk left in the butter, the quicker your butter will go rancid.
After you have rinsed the butter, place it in cheese cloth and remove as much water from it as possible.
Like buttermilk left in it, water residue will cause it to go rancid quicker as well.
Once the water reside is removed, you can either store it in an air tight food storage container in the fridge or freeze it for later.
How Long Does Homemade Butter Keep?
Some say it is a shame to freeze homemade butter, but the truth is that I get more butter out of my raw milk than I could reasonably use before it goes rancid because I make it so often.
For instance, the batch I made for this post used 5 gallons of raw milk. Out of those 5 gallons of raw milk, I made approximately 4# of homemade butter. Since I don’t want to waste the cream or the butter, I freeze it.
Yes, it does lessen the taste, but it is not enough of a difference to keep me from doing it.
In the refrigerator, homemade butter will last approximately a week. You may be able to stretch that to ten days if you removed enough buttermilk and water however I would not trust it much past that.
In the freezer, it will last up to three months.
If you are going to freeze homemade butter, shape it into a log after you rinse it then wrap it in wax or parchment paper.
Wrap it a second time with butchers paper and secure with freezer tape. Be sure to label it with the date and rotate it oldest out first so you don’t lose any to expiration.
What tools do I need to Make Butter
Well, you could use a stand mixer to beat your cream into butter, but if you do, I recommend using a splash guard or towel over your stand mixer bowl to protect your clothes and counters from the liquid that you’ll get when your butter starts to form.
But for the purposes of me teaching you how to make butter, you’ll be using a quart size mason jar. It’s simple, less messy and works up just as quickly.
Homemade Butter
Why buy butter when making it at home is so easy? Homemade butter is rich, creamy, delicious, and surprisingly simple to make with just one ingredient! I'll show you how to make butter from scratch, step by step, without any fancy equipment. It's an old-fashioned kitchen skill that's easier than you might think. Save this one and give it a try!
Equipment
- Quart Mason Jars
- Fine Mesh Sieve
- Mixing Bowl
- Cheesecloth
Ingredients
- Heavy Cream
- Sea Salt Optional
Instructions
- Add heavy cream and sea salt (if using) to quart sized mason jar.
- Replace mason jar lid and ring and tighten to finger tight. Shake 8-10 minutes until fats separate into homemade butter.
- Pour into fine mesh sieve and allow to drain.
- Save buttermilk.
- Rinse butter until all buttermilk residue is removed. Use cheesecloth to remove water residue. Store in refrigerator or freeze.
