A friend recently gave me 4 gallons of cow’s milk. We’ve always kept dairy goats, but the cream from the Jersey cow was a special treat. I turned that 4 gallons of milk into yogurt, mozzarella cheese, butter, buttermilk, and whey. And, of course, we got to drink fresh, raw milk.
How to make butter is a lot easier than you would think; especially if you use your mixer. I have a Bosch Universal Kitchen Machine but you can use any mixer. First, pour 1 – 1 1/2 quarts of cold cream into the mixer. Using the wire whips, turn it on high. After about 3 minutes you will have fresh whipped cream like this:
But if you want to make butter, don’t stop here. Keep it going. You will eventually begin to see the little globules of fat start to separate. Like this:
It is a good idea at this point to scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula as the solids will creep up the sides. Keep going until you start to hear the milk splashing. If you look, you will see it splashing up on the lid of the mixer bowl like this:
When it looks like this, you are done:
To get to this point takes between 15-25 minutes. It varies depending on how cold your cream is, the room temperature, and the quantity of cream in the bowl. This batch took me 25 minutes because I kept stopping it to take pictures; and I had almost 2 quarts of cream in there.
Once the fat has totally separated, pour the contents into a colander resting over a bowl and strain out the buttermilk. You may want to use your spatula to scrape the sides.
Once strained, remove the colander with the butter and place under cold running water. Work the butter with your hands, squeezing and folding to wash it and remove all the buttermilk. Buttermilk left in the butter will cause it to sour faster so do this step until anything that squeezes out of your butter is clear. This is the step where you add salt, too. I just sprinkle salt out of my salt shaker, squeeze and fold, sprinkle again, and do this a few times. Remember to keep it under the cold, running water or the warmth from your hands will cause it to melt on you.
Once you feel confident that all the buttermilk is extracted, mold the butter into a nice shape and place on a plate. My Corelle cereal bowls overturn on the small plate perfectly to form a cover. Maybe someday I’ll invest in a round butter dish.
That’s about it. The whole process only took me about 30-40 minutes and the guys just loved having the fresh butter. What about you? Have any tips to add on how to make butter? Please share with us in the comments.
Blessings,
This post is linked to Backyard Farming Connection’s Homemade Dairy page and the Hearth and Soul Hop. Click on the picture below for more delicious posts.
I’d like to give this a try. Thanks for walking us through the process!
thanks for this simple and easy method to prepare butter.
You’re welcome, Roshan. It is a simple process, just intimidating, I guess.
[Insert sheepish grin] – Do you have any posts on how to get the cream out of the milk?
Thanks for asking Cheryl. Maybe that could be a future post but I’ll explain briefly here: Let the milk sit overnight in the fridge. Ours is in 1/2 gallon jars. Then, using a small ladle that will fit through the mouth of the jar, I dip it out. You can see the separation line on the side of the jar. If your milk is from a Jersey, you probably have at least a couple inches of cream on top. If you go too deep and get a little of the milk, that’s okay. The longer the milk sits, the thicker it will be and the easier it will be to dip out. Hope this helps.
Super! Thanks so much, that does help a lot.
Great post!
Roughly how much butter do you get out of the 2 quarts, and how much buttermilk would you get as well?
Thanks!
You know, Chayne, I haven’t gotten raw cow’s milk from my friend in a while, so I can’t quite remember how much buttermilk resulted. But that 1 1/2 quarts of cream gives the butter you see on the plate–which I estimate to be about a pound.