Culinary Foundations: Hand Made Butter

As I am getting settled into my new home and life, hopefully, is slowing down a bit, I got the urge to do some actual cooking in my new kitchen.  Usually when I cook at home, my 6 year old sous chef is my only companion.  At 6 she usually spends her time chopping, pouring, mixing, stirring and telling me what to do.

While dinner was cooking my wife and oldest daughter started talking about butter.  I have only made butter a few times before, including once in a mason jar. My oldest, having recently started taking interest in amateur photography, proposed I make some butter and she would document the process in photo.  That being said, I should give partial authorship, and total photo credit, to my daughter Cameron.



My Daughter, Cameron


Homemade butter really only has two ingredients.  Cream and Salt.  For our impromptu little project I used one quart of heavy whipping cream and a few pinches of kosher salt.  In case you didn't know, any butter made from pasteurized cream is call sweet cream butter.  Sweet Cream Butter (salted or not) is the predominant type of butter used in the Unites States.  Actually, there is a wide range of butter or butter products available commercially nowadays.  Generally, and without getting too technical, you can purchase cultured (European style) or Sweet Cream Butter.  Sweet cream butter is labeled as such not because it is sweetened with sugar but because, compared to the very mildly fermented taste of cultured butter, it is relatively sweet tasting.  Of course, with any discussion about food, there are endless variants and production methods which make up the wide variety butter products available at the grocery store.

Basic sweet cream butter is fairly simple and straightforward to make.  All you really need is a whisk and a bowl but you will see by the pictures I started with a stick whisk but then quickly realized that I needed the power of the stand mixer to get the job done.  I also used some cheesecloth to help wash the butter and to shape it.

Depending on factors such as butterfat content, types of and proportion of butterfat and other variables, you should expect to yield about 50% butter and 50% buttermilk (an awesome byproduct of butter making but nothing like the cultured buttermilk you are used to buying) when you are finished. 



Tools for the job;  Heavy cream, bowl, whisk, cheesecloth...and salt.



Some butter recipes call for a chilled bowl and room temperature
cream or a room temp bowl and chilled cream.
It doesn't really matter.  Bowl meet cream.

Start by whisking the cream slowly so as not to make a mess.

Very quickly air will be mixed with the cream and will begin to
increase dramatically in volume.

A great deal of whisking is needed.

more whisking...

At this point the cream is taking on stiff peaks.  Just like whipped cream
only we will keep whisking until the buttermilk and butterfat separate.

keep whisking.  This phase will feel like it is taking longer
than it should.



I placed the whipped cream into a stand mixer, turned it on high
and after a few minutes you can see that the whipped cream is
starting to break.  At this point, it begins to look a bit
 like curdled milk.

Close up view of the butterfat granules beginning to pull out
of the buttermilk.

...another...

Here you will see that the butter is starting to pull completely
into the whisk.  Once most of the butter as collected into the
whisk you will be ready for the next step.

Close up of the butter completely separated from the cream. 
You can see the buttermilk coming off the butter as the whisk is
pulled from the bowl.



Pull the butter from the whisk and gently separate the butter in
a shallow dish.  Sprinkle the butter with a little kosher salt.

Prepare a large piece of cheesecloth, 3 or 4 layers thick.
Place the butter into the cheesecloth and wrap it around the butter.

If your tap water is relatively cold, rinse the cheesecloth wrapped
butter under running water.  You want to rinse and squeeze as much
as the buttermilk out of the butter as possible.  The more buttermilk
removed, the longer the butter will last without going rancid.

 

Rinsed butter.  At this point, the butter is technically finished.

I take another piece of cheesecloth, doubled up, to help form
the butter into a log. 

After the general size of the log is formed, tie off one end of
the cheesecloth with butcher's twine.

With one end tied, twist the butter tight against the knot
so that you have a tight, compact log.

Completed butter log!  I like to age the butter in the fridge
for a couple days before use. 

Now that you have seen, in pictures, how to make butter at home, give it a shot.



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