How to Make Your Own Butter

Making your own butter is easy. All you need to do is take heavy cream and whip it on high speed until the water separates from the fat. Once it has separated, strain and squeeze out all of the liquid. You will wind up with unsalted butter that you can store in a container in the fridge. I whipped 750ml of cream and it yielded 300 grams of butter. It doesn't take very much time (maybe 15 minutes) but I think it is cheaper than what the stores sell it for. Use organic cream and you will have some terrific stuff!

I was on the phone tonight with my mom, telling her what I had done, and she said that she remembers doing the same thing on the farm but they shook the cream in a jar. We are spoiled nowadays with Kitchen Aids and other gadgets. My sweet grandmother up above must be chuckling :)

Butter is composed of three things: fat, milk solids, and water. To make clarified butter, which is pure fat, heat butter in a saucepan on low heat. Do not let it brown. As it melts, the milk solids float to the top, the fat lingers in the middle, and the water sinks to the bottom. Skim off the milk solids and pour out the fat through cheesecloth, leaving the water behind. Clarified butter is delicious to cook with and doesn't burn as easily. It has a higher smoke point, as it no longer contains the milk solids. It can be stored for a few months in the refrigerator without going rancid.

A cool tip is that you can even make butter out of cream that has gone off a bit. Just whip it up and discard the liquid as mentioned above. It is the milk solids and moisture that sours, not the fat molecules. You can take it a step further and clarify it. This is another way to salvage something instead of throwing it out.