Making your own homemade butter is as easy as pouring the cream in the food processor and let the machine do the work for you. But if you do not have a food processor, you can do it manually by using a mason jar or any large bottle with lid. A simple homemade butter, its worth trying even just for the sake of experiencing how to make it at home.

Out of curiosity and from what I’ve been seeing from YouTube, I decided to make my own butter at home, just like when I made my own cheese. I’ve seen several videos and I was convinced that it’s too easy not to try it, so I gave it a go.  First try, I used the Mason Jar Method, which I call the Shake, Shake, Shake method. Here’s how it goes.

Mason Jar Method

This method starts by pouring a COLD whipping cream into a glass with lid, I used a mason jar. That’s basically the simplest step, so savor the moment because you are in for a surprise. You will literally be shaking the bottle until your arms hurts like crazy. Shake, shake, until the buttermilk separates. It’s not as easy as it looks when you are actually the one doing it. Initially I though how hard could it be to just shake the bottle? Anybody could do that, well that’s actually true. But shaking it manually for 10 minutes is not a joke, it’s insanely tiring an it made me ask myself why again am I doing this? I box of butter (2 cups) only cost about 4CAD, and here I am using all the power I could get from my arms and hands just to make homemade butter. Then I reminded myself if just to satisfy my curiosity, maybe a little of sense of accomplishment plus the right to complain and rant about how crazy insane it is to make it from scratch just like homemade Croissant (that one is even crazier, 3 days in the making). 

Food Processor Method

My arm got so tired, I’m done with the shaking and made my next batch and second attempt using my food processor. It was such a breeze! Now I’m loving making this homemade butter. It was so easy, simply pour the cold cream into the food processor and let the machine do the work. I don’t even have to worry in over whipping it because the idea is to over whip or mix it so that the buttermilk starts to separate. This process is definitely the easiest and my most preferred but in case you do not have a food processor, and you do not want to do ant arm exercise, then the last tow options are to use a hand held mixer or a stand mixer.

2 Ingredients Homemade Butter 

Do you know that making homemade butter is so easy and you only require 1 ingredient (if not counting the water to wash the butter) to make the base? All you need is a full fat whipped cream nothing else, just that. There are 4 ways that you can make it at home. You can use a stand mixer, hand mixer, food processor and a glass bottle. Doing it manually will require a LOT of hand and arm movement because you have to shake, shake, shake it until the buttermilk separates from the whipped cream. It’s totally doable, but will require longer time and more manual effort. I opt to use my food processor to make my life easier. All you need to do is to mix the whip cream until the butter milk separates. You will know I that happens because you will see milk separating and a solid portion which is the butter forming. 

Why do we need to add water?

Water is optional. If you are making a batch that you will consume immediately, then there’s no need to wash the butter with ice water. On the other hand, if you plan to keep the homemade butter at least 1 week, it is recommended to wash it with ice cold water to remove extra buttermilk from the butter. Since I use my homemade butter for spreading and cooking, I don’t consume it in on seating. Even though I make a small batch, I wash the butter with ice cold water. So it’s really up to you and how long you intend to keep the homemade butter. I would suggest wash it with ice cold water just in case you wouldn’t be able to use yo everything, after all that additional step will not take so much time to do.

Can I flavor the butter?

Yes You can. This is where it gets even more fun to make homemade butter. You get to flavor it the way you want to. Here are possible options:

• Make it Salted Butter Add 1/4 tsp fine salt for every 1 stick of butter. This recipes makes 1 stick or 1/2 cup.
• Garlic Butter – Add 1/4- 1/2 tsp powdered garlic butter, or more if you want a stronger garlic flavor
• Lemon and Herb Butter  1/4 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1/2 tsp fine salt, 1-2 tbsp freshly chopped herbs such as basil, dill or thyme or 1-2 tsp dried herbs or Italian seasoning, 1/4 tsp garlic powder (or more if you like it stronger)
• Garlic and Heb Butter  1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley or 2 tsp dried parsley or Italian seasoning, 1/4 tsp garlic powder (or more if you like it stronger)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups (24floz/720ml) Heavy Cream (high fat content) – room temperature
• 1 tsp Salt – optional
• 2/3 cup Ice COLD Water

Instructions:

1. Pour the cold cream into your food processor. You can also use an electric whisk or stand mixer, or even mason jar but that would require a lot of arm exercise for manual shaking.
2. Whip the cream until buttermilk separates. After around 2 minutes you will see it start to over whip and really thicken, at this stage you will have a consistency of a whipped cream frosting. Keep going and whip for about 4 more minutes. After 4 minutes the buttermilk should be fully separated from the butter. You can see yellow buttery solids (the butter) and cloudy liquid (buttermilk) at this point.
3. Remove the buttermilk and set aside. Don’t throw it, you can use it for baking like biscuits, scones or even cakes.
4. Pour 1/4 cup of ice cold water. This helps separate the butter fully separate from the liquid (buttermilk) and you will see even more buttermilk appear. This is also help the butter last longer as there are more fat that less excess liquid (buttermilk). This step is recommended specially if you are making a large batch. Whip for another 30 seconds just to extract more buttermilk.
5. Remove the buttermilk over a bowl. Pour another 1/4 cup of ice cold water and whip another 30 seconds, this is the final rinse. Remove buttermilk and transfer the butter (solid portion) into a bowl.
6. Try to squeeze out more water as possible, you can use a clean tea towel or cheese cloth of squeeze out the extra liquid or use a spatula to press the butter on the side of the bowl to get rid of excess water. Make sure there is NO more buttermilk in there. You want to remove it all otherwise your butter will be wet.
7. OPTIONAL: Stir in some salt, herbs and spices to the soft butter. This recipe will yield you over 2 sticks/ 10oz/ 300g of butter.

Store in the fridge for 6 – 8 weeks and use in your baking, savory dishes or even on toast.

Makes 2 sticks (1 cup)

Recipe Adapted from: Bigger Bolder Baking

Make it Flavored:

Flavor it the way You like it. I made my Garlic Butter using this homemade butter. It went really well, it was delicious. get the FULL RECIPE HERE

1. Make sure all the ingredients have reached room temperature before mixing them. In a medium bowl, mix the softened butter and your preferred spices, herbs and other ingredients. Spoon the butter on a piece of parchment paper. Wrap and roll to create a log shape.
2. Twist the ends of the paper in the opposite direction to seal. Store the butter in the fridge for up to a week or freeze for up to 6 months. If you decide to freeze it, it helps if you slice it into as many servings as needed.

3 Other Alternative Ways to Make Homemade Butter

Regardless of how you decide to do  it, the process the same, the ingredients are the same. The main difference is the effort that you will put in and how long it will take. Here are other options that you can consider if you do not have a food processor.

• Stand Mixer – Use the whisk attachment to help the buttermilk separates faster. This is also a convenient way to make it, but the only downside is that you should have a splatter cover to avoid the buttermilk from splattering all over your kitchen. If you do not have a splatter cover, cover the top with wet towel as soon as you start the 2 minutes whisking stage. At 4- 6 minutes stage you should already have a butter on hand.
• Hand Mixer – Use the whisk attachment to help the buttermilk separates faster, and use a LARGE deep bowl. This is very important as there is more chance for buttermilk to splatter when you use a shallow bowl. There is a little bit of a challenge in controlling the splattering because you cannot cover it while to manually whisk it. So the best thing is  just to minimize it by using a deep large bowl. At 4- 6 minutes stage you should already have a butter on hand.

• Mason Jar  This method requires more time and energy but it is totally doable, and you don’t need any equipment or machine here except for a jar. This is the first method that I tried even before resorting to the food processor. All you have to do is to pour the whipping cream in a large bottle, I used a mason jar. The amount of the whipping cream when poured in the jar should only fill the jar 1/2 full to give room for the cream to bounce when you shake it. The buttermilk will start to separate at 6 – 8 minutes stage, and will fully separate at about 10 – 11 minutes. It’s a lot longer than the 2 other methods, and it really requires an arm exercise. My arm was literally tired after doing this, but it’s worth having my own homemade butter. The photo above shows the texture and consistency at every 2 minutes stage, at 10 minutes you will have a butter ready to use, just squeeze out and remove the buttermilk (liquid) to give the butter a longer shelf life.

Recipe Notes:

• Dairy free milk will NOT work for this recipe. Use a cream with a high fat content. The higher the better.
• Use room temperature cream to allow buttermilk to separate faster – this is especially helpful if you are doing the mason jar method.

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