Butter used to be a project that took our foremothers all day. How wonderful it is that we can now whip up a batch of homemade sweet cream butter without much fuss or trouble and can even do other kitchen tasks while the homemade butter practically makes itself!
Using a tool most of us have in our kitchens, a stand mixer, you can pour in your slightly warmed cream, flip it on, and walk away. (This is the easiest way to skim cream I’ve found.)
But if you happen to hang around and watch this amazing process in action, you’ll notice the cream go through several changes. It will quickly whip into a soft cream, followed by a stiffly whipped cream…
Then it breaks and falls before it looks curdled.
You’ll begin to notice a milky liquid puddling along the sides. This is when I like to switch to the paddle attachment.
I like to start with the whisk attachment and then switch to the paddle in the end. I’ve done lots of experimenting with both attachments and with various speeds and have found that when you start with the whisk it makes smaller butter pieces, extracting the most buttermilk which makes for less rinsing later, and then the paddle attachment brings all those bitty buttery pieces together in a beautiful golden lump.
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- Keep your butter fresh and soft with a butter bell!
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- Butter muslin has a finer weave than regular cheesecloth.
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- This silicone pan makes the perfect 1/2 cup butter sticks.
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- I love this tool- it’s a funnel fit with a silicone strainer.
When it’s all clumped together in a ball of butter and the buttermilk is beginning to splash up the sides of the bowl, you’re just about done! Quickly shut off the mixer before you make a mess. Just be careful that when you turn off the mixer you don’t accidentally turn it UP! It will splash everywhere!!
Drain the buttermilk off into a bowl- BUT DON’T THROW IT AWAY! You can use it anywhere you use buttermilk. Or you may put in a tablespoon of cultured buttermilk and leave it out in a warm place to culture until thick and then you have a beautifully thick, cultured buttermilk. It’s so simple!
Once the buttermilk is drained, put the butter back into the mixer bowl and run some really cold water over the butter and massage out any residual buttermilk. Drain the milky water and refill it with more cold water and repeat the massaging and rinsing and draining until the water is clear. And you’re all done!
Unless you’d like salted butter.
Like I do.
So I’ll massage in ¼ teaspoon of butter for every 2-3 cups of cream I used to make the butter. It depends on how your taste preferences. I don’t worry about having salted vs. unsalted butter on hand for baking. I’ve yet to notice a difference in a recipe where it called for unsalted butter and I used salted instead. It’s just one less thing I have to manage.
At this point you have to decide whether or not to take your butter to the next level and make an herbal compound butter or bacon butter. Which I can’t begin to recommend enough. You’ll never go back!
How to Make Sweet Cream Butter
How to Make Your Own Sweet Cream Butter
Ingredients
- 1 quart of cream
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
Instructions
- Sit the cream out on the counter to warm up for an hour or two. Slightly warmed cream (50-60 degrees) whips up into butter more quickly.
- Pour the cream into a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and turn it onto medium (I set it to 4.)
- When the cream begins to separate into small chunks of butter and you can see the buttermilk beginning to gather at the sides, switch to the paddle attachment.
- After the paddle attachment (also set at 4) brings all the butter together, drain the buttermilk into a jar using butter muslin and a canning funnel
- Place the butter back into the mixing bowl and cover the butter with cold water.
- Massage the butter, releasing any remaining buttermilk.
- Drain the cloudy water, refill, massaging again until all the buttermilk is released and the rinse water stays clear.
- Drain the water.
- Massage in ½ tsp., more or less, to taste.
- Keep soft and fresh in a Butter Bell (Like this one.)
- or spread into a silicone pan (I use this one.)to make a stick.
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Enjoy!
You have a beautiful blog- thank you for sharing all that you do! I have a quick question if you don’t mind: how much butter do you yield typically from the quart of cream? Thanks 🙂
Hi Tara,
Not a whole lot. I figured it out a few weeks ago and a gallon of milk is getting us roughly a pint of cream and yielding 1/4 pound of butter. Like many things such as tomato sauce & paste, butter is one of those things I can’t figure out how they produce it so cheaply. :/
Hey there Quinn! Thanks for this great info. I'm confused about one part…when you say "massage" the butter, are you talking about using the stand mixer again, or with your hands, or a spoon, or what exactly? I'm new to this. Any tips appreciated! Thanks!
So sorry it took a while to get back to you! I knead the butter like bread I suppose is the best way I could describe it. You could also put it back in the mixer with the paddle attachment on the lowest setting, but you'd have to clean the bowl out first since it will be wet with buttermilk. Frankly, I'm too lazy for that 😉
i just recently started making my own butter, and while researching, i found butter paddles. i ordered them the other day, and should be receiving them soon. they are sort of like a little wooden cutting board, only they have little ‘grooves’ in them. you ‘massage’ the butter with them, and the buttermilk comes out through the grooves. i think they should work really well!! i can’t believe how easy it is to make yummy butter!!! i’m hooked!!!
Yes! I got butter paddles last fall and they’re pretty slick little tools! Plus I feel super cool going back to my pioneer roots using them-lol! Have fun with yours!
I lived on the farm when I was 16 years old. I learned how to milk the cow, separate the milk and make our own buttermilk. (Grandma had a (“Wealth of Knowledge”). Then we made our cream and of course we churned our butter. She was in her late 80’s so we used an electric jar. It was quite big because she sold her butter, buttermilk and eggs at least twice a week. I tried to find a picture of the butter churn, I well keep looking for it. If I find it I will forward it to you. Your Blog is GREAT! I am new to it, but you will be hearing from me again.
What an amazing memory to have! I’m so thankful you had that special time with your grandmother! Hope you figure out what churn it was and can find one just like it to remember her by! ❤️
Hi!
Just curious… would this work with heavy whipping cream from a store?
Quinn, unfortunately I don’t have my own Bessie (my husband said we have too many animals already), so I’ll have to buy my cream. Most of the heavy cream or whipping cream in the grocery store is ultra-pasterized and while I’ve used it to make butter it just doesn’t have any flavor, certainly nothing like my Grandmother would have. Would it be best for me to try to find fresh cream or at least not ultra-pasterized? I’ve never rinsed it either, but I would think the buttermilk would give it a stronger flavor rather than dilute it. Thanks for your help!