Homemade Butter
Making homemade butter at home is so easy. Using fresh heavy cream, you will end up with butter and buttermilk. This process takes less than 10 minutes and will give you super fresh butter and buttermilk that you can use in your recipes that call for butter.
1 quart (32 ounces) of heavy whipping cream will yield 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) of butter and 1 ½ cups (12 ounces) of buttermilk.
I recommend making butter with 2 quarts. Butter freezes well, so you might as well make a double batch right off the bat.
Why Make Homemade Butter
- It’s fun. Making butter is a fun experiment.
- When you make butter from scratch, you start with one product and end up with two. Butter & buttermilk.
- Cost. It’s not exactly cheaper to make your butter. However, you might break even if you can find heavy cream on sale.
In my area at Safeway, 1 lb of unsalted butter (4 sticks) costs anywhere from $6.89 to $8.69. I quart of buttermilk is $2.29 to $3.49.
One quart of organic heavy cream costs $8.89 to $9.19.
At the lowest cost point, 1 quart of heavy cream ($8.89) Will yield 3 sticks of butter which would cost $5.16, and 12 ounces of buttermilk which is typically less than a dollar. So yeah….maybe not the most cost-effective recipe.
What You’ll Need
- Heavy Cream. Use heavy cream to make butter. Do not substitute for milk or half and half.
- Mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.
How to Make Butter
- Add the heavy whipping cream to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. You can also use a food processor or hand mixer.
- Whip the cream on low at first and then speed it up.
- You will whip the cream past the point of making whipped cream. As you continue beating the cream, it will begin to separate, and you will start to see the liquid buttermilk fall out.
- Continue to whip the cream until you lump bright yellow butter surrounded by the liquid buttermilk. This could take up to 10 minutes.
- Strain off and reserve the buttermilk. Store in an airtight container like a mason jar until you are ready to use it.
- Rinse the butter in cold water.
The End Results
Fresh homemade butter + buttermilk.
How to Use Homemade Butter
Use homemade butter any way that you would use store-bought butter. Butter can be used to make a variety of compound butter.
- Garlic and herb
- Sriracha
- Mushroom
- Basil
- Roasted red pepper
- Honey butter
How to Store Butter
If you won’t be using your butter right away, you can portion out your butter into ½ cup portions. This is the typical portion for 1 stick of butter.
Use Souper Cubes (affiliate link) portion trays to portion and chill the butter. Once the butter is chilled firm, you can freeze it until you have already used it.
How To Use Buttermilk
Buttermilk can be used for all types of baking.
- Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing
- Buttermilk Pancakes
- Cakes and Cupcakes
How to Store Buttermilk
Store buttermilk in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
Bread For Your Butter
Nothing is better with fresh butter than a slice of homemade bread.
- French Bread
- Dinner Rolls
- Banana Bread
- Buttermilk Cornbread
- Buttermilk Bread
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How To Make Homemade Butter
Equipment
- Souper Cubes ½ cup portion tray (affiliate link)
Ingredients
- 1 quart hearty bread
Instructions
- Add the heavy whipping cream to the bowl of your mixer.
- Start to whip the cream. You will while the cream past the point of making whipped cream. As you continue to whip the cream, it will begin to separate, and you will start to see the liquid buttermilk fall out.
- You will continue to whip the cream until you lump bright yellow butter surrounded by the liquid buttermilk. This could take up to 10 minutes.
- Strain off and reserve the buttermilk.
- Store in an airtight container until you are ready to use it.
- Rinse the solid butter in cool water.
Can I add salt?
Yes, absolutely. Just steer clear of iodized salt. Stick with fine sea salt or Himalayan salt.
Im curious what happened? If you have 32oz of cream and churn it to butter, how do you get about 3 sticks of butter and 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk? What happened to the other 4 oz of cream?
That is a good question. Some of the butter fat is still retained in the buttermilk itself. The buttermilk ’12 ounces’ is liquid volume and not weight. For ease of explanation, I was guessing most people will measure the liquid volume of buttermilk into a recipe. Next time I make this, I will measure the weight of the buttermilk to see if it does add up to 32 ounces in the end.