Easy Homemade Butter that anyone can make in 5 minutes

Have you ever made butter before? Do you know what is in the butter you buy at the store or how old it is? Now you can make your own delicious easy homemade butter in less than 5 minutes, and you don’t even need a cow!

Making homemade butter is something even a young toddler can do, and yet it’s always so gratifying. I recall making homemade butter with my Girl Scouts troop many moons ago and recently made it with my 4-H class. You should have seen the look on their faces when they ate real butter they just made by shaking milk in a jar. As simple as it is to make, I don’t know why we all don’t do it more often. 

Buttermilk- Where does it come from?

Buttermilk is the liquid leftover from making butter. When you churn butter, or in our case, mix it, the liquids separate from the fat. The fats will become butter and the liquid that separates from the fats is buttermilk. Buttermilk contains no butter and very little fat. It’s also lower in fat than regular milk because the fats are removed in the butter-making process. 

Buttermilk has a tangy flavor and creamy richness to dishes from savory to sweet, and powers the leavening in baked goods.

Homemade Butter Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 Pint Heavy Cream (from your dairy animal or buy from the store) or heavy Whipping Cream
• 1/8 tsp Salt *optional

Directions

1. Pour Cold Heavy Cream into the blender, food processor, or use a hand mixer and mix on high speed for 4-5 mins.
2. Keep blending until butter forms and milk separates from cream. 
3. The milk that separates from the butter is called Buttermilk. 
4. Drain Buttermilk off of butter and save
5. Save the remaining buttermilk for pancakes, biscuits (Buttermilk Pancake recipe below), baking, or drinking. 
6. Place butter in a bowl and run cold water over the butter to rinse the buttermilk off until the water runs clear.
   The better job you do at rinsing off the buttermilk from you butter, the longer the shelf-life your butter will have. 
7. Use the back of a spoon or spatula to press any water/milk out of the butter. Do this until water runs clear and you can not press any more liquid out.
8. Mix salt in butter *optional
9. Store your homemade butter in a container in the fridge for up to one week or in the freezer for up to a couple of months.

• If using a hand mixer, place the mixing bowl in a bowl of ice water to help the butter form quicker

Homemade Butter by a Different Name- Ghee

Ghee is an Ultra-Clarified Butter and traditionally used in Asian cooking. With the growing popularity of the keto diet and lactose sensitivity, it is rapidly gaining popularity. 

Ghee is made by heating regular butter and separating the liquid fats from the milk solids. Although its origin is still dairy, ghee contains less lactose than regular butter and can sometimes be tolerated by those with lactose intolerance.  

You can learn to make your own ghee by following How to Make Ghee by The Pioneer Woman

The Difference Between Butter

Did you know that not all butter is created equal? One type of butter out-shines the rest. When you look for quality butter you need to consider the source. Healthy cows produce healthy milk and when you have healthy milk, you can make healthier butter. It’s that simple. 

Common Sense Home shares the differences between standard and grass-fed butter.

CLA is just one of the omega fatty acids that have been found to be richer in grass-fed animals. The potentially important ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids has also been in the news a lot, and Pasture Butter has a naturally occurring, heart-healthy optimal ratio.

You can read more about their findings here. 

Cultured Raw Butter

Cultured butter is better for your health and digestion. Our friends at Butter For All share their recipe and research. 

Why Raw Cultured Dairy is Superior

Culturing dairy has many benefits like improving nutrition, improving digestion, and facilitating natural preservation.

Before the modern advancement(?) of pasteurization many traditional cultures had some sort of fermented or cultured dairy product. Sour cream, creme fraiche, clabber milk, yogurt, kefir, pima milk, and hard and soft cheeses are all ways of using fermentation to preserve raw unadulterated dairy.

Follow their recipe for cultured butter here. 

Compound Butter

A Compound Butter (or Finishing Butter) is butter that has been mixed with other ingredients. Compound butter can be savory or sweet.
I love playing with different ingredients like my homemade butter, orange zest, a dash of cinnamon and raw honey from our bees. Here are two of our favorite compound butter recipes. 

• Blue Cheese & Herb Infused Butter.
• Honey Walnut Butter

Bonus Recipe: Buttermilk Pancakes

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