How to Make Butter

My friend, Briony, first introduced me to the idea of making butter a few months ago, when we were cooking together at her house, and she mentioned she had made the butter we were cooking with. I love the idea of  making things from scratch whenever possible, so of course I was super interested to hear how she did it!

Surprisingly, it’s crazy simple. It’s a matter of shaking cream until the butter separates from the buttermilk, draining the buttermilk, and rinsing the butter with water. And ta-da! …butter.

Ingredients & Materials:

• Fresh Cream (or heavy whipping cream as they call it)
• Mason Jar with Lid
• Cold Tap Water for Rinsing

1. Pour cream into mason jar and secure cover tightly. I used 1 cup cream and it yielded about 1/3 c butter, but larger batches are also very doable.
2. Shake, shake, shake and shake the mason jar some more until the butter separates from the buttermilk.
3. Once you feel like the butter has reached it’s solid state, drain the buttermilk into another container. Don’t discard the buttermilk though–use it for buttermilk pancakes later!
4. Pour cold water into the mason jar and use a rubber spatula to press any remaining buttermilk out of the butter.
5. Drain the water and add sea salt if you’d like. We mostly use butter for cooking and baking, so I prefer to leave it unsalted.
6. Press into a butter mold, or simply store in a ramekin.

Yup, it’s that easy!