Making your own homemade butter is a lot easier than you might think. In fact, using the method I am about to show you takes 10-15 minutes from start to finish. It no longer requires a butter churn or shaking a jar for 30 or more minutes. Seriously, making your own butter is so easy! You'll wonder why you didn't try this before.
The last time I made butter was in the third grade. It was a class project. We poured the heavy cream into a lidded jar and took turns shaking it like crazy. We were amazed by the fact that simply shaking heavy cream would create butter. The process was quite lengthy. Mmmmmm... but it was so worth the effort. Don't worry; I'm not going to guide you through the process of making homemade butter using the shake-a-jar method. Instead, I'm going to show you how to make butter the easy way. I make butter using my stand mixer. If you don't have a stand mixer, a blender, food processor, or even a hand mixer will work.
How to make butter:
Pour 16 oz. of heavy whipping cream and ½ tsp. of salt into the mixer and run it on high. Beat the mixture until it turns to whipped cream. This will take a couple of minutes. Beat the mixture about three minutes more and you will notice that the butter will break. At this point it will resemble finely scrambled eggs. The term "break" means that the butter is starting to crumble and separate from the liquid buttermilk. Continue to beat the butterfat (the small clumps) until it forms larger clumps. Pour the liquid from the butterfat. The liquid is buttermilk. You can save this and use it for baking. It makes great pancakes! Now, pour a little ice water into the butter and buttermilk mixture and mix it for about 30 seconds. Doing this will "clean" the butter and keep it from going sour. Dump the water. Pour more ice water into the butter mixture and repeat the cleaning process several times. You will know that you are finished when the water is almost clear. If you plan on using the butter immediately, you can skip this ice water washing. Knead the last of the water from the butter by hand. Form the butter into a ball or use a butter mold to shape it. Cover it and refrigerate. Enjoy! That's it. I told you it was easy, didn't I? You now have creamy, dreamy, homemade butter, not to mention soft hands. You know what taste great slathered with your homemade butter? A thick slice of warm, homemade bread.
