How to make butter

Making butter is something I've wanted to try for some time, but haven't done... until today!  It's so easy, I wish I'd tried it sooner.

There are multiple ways to make butter:

• with a food processor (this is the method I used today)
• with a blender
• with a mixer
• with a butter churn
• by hand in a jar

I was tempted to try the jar method (put the cream in a jar and shake!), but since this was my first time, I wanted to ensure a good result and therefore chose the food processor method. 

All you need is cream. Let it sit out on the kitchen counter until it is at room temperature.  Mine was out about 3 hours, but the house was pretty chilly today.  It would probably need less time in the summer or if I had a fire in the wood burning stove. 

Pour the cream into the food processor (or blender, mixer, etc.). I started out using my plastic blade, but I found that it was too short and was merely pushing the cream to the edges. Once I switched to my regular slicing blade it worked much better.  Turn on the food processor and let it work.  

After a few minutes, you will notice the butter and buttermilk starting to separate (ahh, so that's where buttermilk comes from!).  The butter will look like lots of little pieces of butter.  Pour the buttermilk out.  I put mine in a canning jar and stuck it in the fridge. Later in the day, I used it to make buttermilk biscuits. 

If you want your butter to last for more than a couple days, you need to wash your butter. Pour ice cold water into the butter and turn your machine on again for a minute. Pour off the water.  Now you need to get as much water out of your butter as possible.  I put my butter in a bowl and used the back of a wooden spoon to press out the water.  When done, I put my butter in a glass container with lid and proudly put it in the fridge. 

Since the butter is soft at this point, this would be a great time to add flavoring if you want to make a compound butter (ie. butter with something mixed in). Fresh herbs, honey, and marmalade are just a few of the options. 

Now that I know how easy it is to make butter, this will be added to my list of items I'd rather make myself!  Next time I think I will try the jar method. 

Note:  The amount of butter you end up with is about half the amount of cream you start with. The other half becomes buttermilk.