Butter is an essential pantry item and our fridge is never without at least a block! We use it in many recipes. Curious to find out what it takes to make butter, I set off one night to try my hand at it. After a quick google search, I found out that all I needed to churn butter was simply some thickened cream, a glass jar, and some elbow grease! Easy!
How to make butter. To make butter, all you need to do is to add thickened cream into a clean glass jar (about half a jar) and start shaking. After a decent bit of effort, it will become thickened cream. At this point, it is hard to see the inside of the jar and shaking the cream will feel like naught. However, do keep shaking and eventually, liquid (buttermilk; as seen in the right jar in the picture above) will start to separate out from the solids (butter) and it will become easier to shake the contents. Keep shaking the jar until the butter starts to clump together. The lump of butter will be distinguishable in the pool of buttermilk. Once no more buttermilk appears to be released, pour the buttermilk into a separate glass jar and proceed to wash the butter. Simply add clean tapwater into the jar, shake and pour out the residual buttermilk. Repeat until the water is clear. And now my friends, you have made pure unsalted butter! Flavors to try: salt, maple syrup, honey... the possibilities are endless!
Thoughts on homemade butter. The butter is very soft after it has been freshly made. However, upon refrigeration, it becomes very hard, similar to the butter that is used for baking (the ones sold in blocks). Although it is hard to scrape and spread when straight out of the fridge, once melted and spread on a fresh toast, it soaks through the bread and imparts a very subtle buttery flavor to it. It also does not taste very greasy. In fact, it tastes more natural and nicer than the commercially sold ones made specifically for toast!
When you churn butter from thickened cream, you also get buttermilk which can be used in other recipes. Bonus! Sadly, I did not get a chance to use the buttermilk from this batch as it went bad before I was inspired by a recipe requiring buttermilk. Oh well, hopefully the next time I churn butter, I will be better prepared!
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