Did you know you can make your own homemade butter in a KitchenAid mixer or food processor?!! It is fun & easy and tastes SO much better than the store bought stuff!
Okay, so maybe I just tend to get overly excited about butter in general, but I am pretty sure that making homemade butter in my Kitchen-Aid is both the coolest and the most domestic thing I’ve ever done. Just when I didn’t think it was possible to love an appliance even more….I mean really, what’s better than homemade butter? Mmmmmmmm…..butter……
But I digress.
It was seriously so easy that I see a lot more butter making in our future. Since this was technically a homeschool activity (and had no selfish motivations whatsoever!), we tried to follow the instructions from Little House in the Big Woods as closely as we could. Of course considering that we didn’t have a cow or a real butter churn, or even a wooden bowl and paddle, we did a lot of improvising.
We used a quart of heavy cream, which made approximately a pound of butter and about 2 and 1/2 cups of buttermilk. I paid $5.99 for the cream at Publix, which was a lot, but next time I’d probably stock up at Sam’s Club, where it is just under $3 a quart. I’ve heard Aldi has super cheap cream as well. We also grated a carrot to add yellow coloring because that is the way Ma Ingalls did it, but next time I would probably skip that step!
How to Make Homemade Butter
Here is what you need:
1 carrot (optional) 1/4 c. milk (optional) 1 quart heavy cream 3/4 teaspoon salt
Step 1 (optional): Peel & finely grate a carrot. Heat in small saucepan with 1/4 cup milk until milk is bubbly. Use a clean cheesecloth to strain orange-colored milk into the bowl of your stand mixer. Discard shredded carrot.
Step 2: Pour cream into bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add salt. Cover mixer with a towel–trust me on this one, it will be messy! Turn mixer on high.
Step 3: Continue mixing, checking on mixture frequently. It will first turn to whipped cream, then begin to get grainy and separate into butter and buttermilk, and the splashing will get much worse. The butter is ready when it sticks in a clump to the paddle.
Step 4: Place a colander over a bowl, then strain the buttermilk off of the butter. (For a GREAT recipe using buttermilk, try these super yummy refrigerator raisin bran muffins–they are our FAVORITE!)
Step 5: Using your hands or a spatula, press out excess buttermilk under cold running water until water runs clear. Shape into stick or ball. Butter will keep covered in refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. Serve with bread and enjoy!
Note: While we were making our main batch of butter in the Kitchen-Aid, we also made a very small amount of butter by placing the cream in a small jar and taking turns shaking it. This was a great way to show the kids how much work it is to make butter by hand! Our shaken butter didn’t turn out quite as firm, probably because we didn’t shake it long or hard enough–my 3 and 6 year old didn’t have a lot of stamina, but older kids would probably do a little better!
HOMEMADE BUTTER
Ingredients
- 1 carrot optional
- 1/4 c. milk optional
- 1 quart heavy cream
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- (OPTIONAL) Peel & finely grate a carrot. Heat in small saucepan with 1/4 cup milk until milk is bubbly. Use a clean cheesecloth to strain orange-colored milk into the bowl of your stand mixer. Discard shredded carrot.
- Pour cream into bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add salt. Cover mixer with a towel–trust me on this one, it will be messy! Turn mixer on high.
- Continue mixing, checking on mixture frequently. It will first turn to whipped cream, then begin to get grainy and separate into butter and buttermilk, and the splashing will get much worse. The butter is ready when it sticks in a clump to the paddle.
Place a colander over a bowl, then strain the buttermilk off of the butter.
Using your hands or a spatula, press out excess buttermilk under cold running water until water runs clear. Shape into stick or ball. Serve with bread and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
Preparation time: 30 minutes. Number of servings (yield): Approximately 1 pound of butter + 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk. Butter will keep covered in refrigerator for up to 4 weeks.
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Ruth Soukup
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Just a suggestion: Since you already have cheese cloth use it to squeeze the excess moisture out of your butter instead of running the water over it or using the colander. That way you end up with more buttermilk too. FYI, it is not the same as cultured buttermilk you buy at the store! Oh, and you don’t have to put the mixer on High—or even use a mixer. We used to make butter in kindergarten by putting the cream in a jar and shaking it. Of course this worked best when you had 20 kids taking turns shaking it, but (IMO) we felt more like we accomplished something than we might if we just turned a mixer on an watched.
Also, since you have the cheese cloth…..look into making your own Mozzarella! It’s super simple and you can add herbs or whatever to your cheese too!
Great tip! Thanks Tricia!
Thank you it will save me alot of money
This is much easier and less messy if you do it in the blender.
Thanks for the tip Cherilynne! We don’t currently own a blender but after reading other comments I think I may try the food processor next time! Good to know it works in the blender as well. Do you have to do a small amount?
Unfortunately you have to keep stopping the blender to let out the air gap so it will keep working so it’s not that easy in a blender and I’ve ruined more than one spatula making butter.
I accidentally made butter in my blender when trying to make whipped cream. I made the whipping cream in the blender and let it sit in the blender but after a couple minutes or 20 it melted so I tried to rewhip it again but instead of turning into a cream a second time it just went straight to making butter. I didn’t realize at first what happened but I figured it out had some amazing sweet butter for muffins and banana bread. I had added the powdered sugar to it when making whipped cream. and also some vanilla. so this recipe can be used with heavy whipping cream as well. I think I’m gonna try making my own butter on purpose this time. I’m just gonna use my hand mixer with the hpaddle attachment and add some powdered sugar, just a tablespoon, to add sweetness to the ‘table’ butter. but omit it for cooking butter… super stoked!
Just wanted to say, thanks, for having a print option for your recipes. Not everyone does!
I use to help my mom make butter when I was a boy growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. We had a Guernsey milk cow and boy did she produce lots of milk and that milk produced lots of cream. Jersey & Guernsey cows are the only cows that produce lots of cream from their milk. I grew up on a farm. My mother had a (4) gallon churn that she made butter with. Fresh buttermilk is hard to come by unless you make your own.
Real cows milk cream makes it’s own color and you don’t need salt either unless you just like salt.
Harold, I also grew up in the country and my mom used a churn. We let the milk sit out until it clabbered then churned and separated the butter from the buttermilk . No added color and salt was sparingly added at the end. Nothing better on hot biscuits or cornbread.
Your right’ nothing better than homemade butter on hot biscuits and hot cornbread and….homemade molasses & butter for dessert.