Introduction: Easy Homemade Butter

About: Hello and Welcome to In the Kitchen With Matt. I am your host Matt Taylor. My goal for the show is to teach you how to cook really good food at home for cheap. Eating out everyday can get expensive, but it doe…

Let's make homemade butter! In this instructable, I will show you how to make butter. This homemade butter recipe only requires 1 ingredient and a large jar, simple as that. It tastes super yummy and can be used as is or in baking, etc. You can add salt to it if you like, or leave it out. It is up to you. Now let's get started!

If you have any questions or comments, put them down below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Follow the easy steps below or watch the video tutorial or do both!

Step 1: Ingredients and Tools

Ingredients/tools:

  • 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream (about 240 ml)
  • 1 large mason jar with lid
  • strainer
  • bowl
  • cold water
  • parchment paper or cheese cloth
  • spatula

Step 2: Add Cream to Jar

First we add our heavy whipping cream to a large jar, then tighten up the lid.

Step 3: Shake That Jar!

Time to burn some calories! Now we go to work and shake that jar! Two hands works great, but you can use one hand and switch back and forth. You will be shaking it for several minutes. 5 to 10 minutes sometimes longer. As you shake it, the cream will thicken up, and it will feel like nothing is moving around in the jar, that is great, keep at it! The cream goes through phases, first phase it will turn into whipped cream pretty much.

***Note you can also make this in a food processor or blender or use a mixer. :)

Step 4: Shake Until the Butter Milk Separates

The next phase is the separation of the buttermilk from the butter. As you are shaking, after it gets to the whipped cream phase, soon you will hear liquid sloshing around, that is how you know your butter has formed. Stop shaking at this point. If you keep shaking the buttermilk will get re-introduced into the butter and ruin it. Meaning you won't be able to separate it again.

Step 5: Remove the Butter Milk

Now lets remove the buttermilk from the Jar. I use a strainer over the bowl that I want to store the buttermilk in. Save that buttermilk! It can be used in pancakes or whatever other recipe that requires buttermilk. Now you are left with a nice lump of butter! If you are going to use it right away, you can do that, but if you want to be able to store it in the refrigerator, make sure the follow the next steps.

Step 6: Add Cold Water

Now we add cold water to the Jar, about until the butter is half way covered with the water. Put on the lid and shake some more about 20 to 30 seconds or so. The water will get all cloudy. What we are doing is getting out the excess buttermilk. If we leave it in the butter, it will make the butter go bad much more quickly when storing it. After the water gets cloudy, remove it, and then repeat the step, keep doing that until the water is nice and clear.

Step 7: Press Out Remaining Butter Milk

Now we add the butter to parchment paper or cheesecloth and press out the remaining liquid. There are a variety of ways that this can be accomplished. I like to wrap it up in parchment paper and squeeze/press it together, holding it over a bowl.

Step 8: Scrape Butter Together

Now we open up our butter bundle and use a spatula and scrape the butter together and form it into a bar or whatever shape you like. I like to store in the parchment paper and wrap it up, but you can use plastic wrap too if you like. There you go! You just made some butter. Use it in baking or however you would normally use butter. If you would like to add salt, go ahead and add a 1/4 tsp or 1/2 tsp during the pressing phase. Enjoy!

Step 9: Video Tutorial

Don't forget to watch the video tutorial!