Make Your Own Butter

Ingredients

Heavy whipping cream

A pinch of salt

Glass jar with a lid that seals tightly

Directions

Allow the whipping cream to sit at room temperature overnight to let it ripen. Don’t leave it out more than 24 hours, or it will spoil. Pour the whipping cream into the jar, around two thirds of the way full. Tighten the lid so it’s sealed – I like to use a Mason jar for this, but you can use any kind you like. Shake the jar for about twenty to thirty minutes. If you have more than one kid, let them take turns so no one gets bored.

Check the jar periodically—if the contents are getting too thick for you to shake easily, open the jar and use a fork to stir things up a little. Eventually, the cream will start to form yellow clumps. These clumps are your butter, which means you’re done. If you’re not going to eat all your butter immediately, keep it in the jar, refrigerated. It will last about a week before it begins to spoil.

You can add flavor (and help prevent early spoilage) by adding a bit of salt to your butter. If you like, add herbs or honey. Experiment a little, to see what sorts of flavors you enjoy best. Also, if you allow your butter to chill after mixing it, you can shape it into blocks for easy cutting and spreading.

Using a Stand Mixer

If you have a stand mixer, you can actually make this in your mixer. Pour the cream into your mixer’s bowl and add the salt. Cover the whole thing with a towel – trust me, this is important, because it gets really splashy. Put your mixer on the lowest setting and let it run for about five minutes. The cream will separate so that you end up with not just butter, but buttermilk as well, which you can use in recipes.

You can use as much or as little cream as you want, but just kind of as a guideline, if you’re using the jar method above, a cup of cream will give you around half a cup of butter and a half cup of buttermilk. If you’re using a stand mixer, a whole quart of cream will yield a pound of butter and about two cups of buttermilk.