How To Make Butter At Home

Making butter at home is surprisingly simple. All you really need is heavy cream and a way to agitate it until the butterfat separates from the liquid. In this guide, I’ll show you how to make homemade butter using a range of methods, along with exactly what to look for as the cream changes from liquid cream to whipped cream and finally into butter.

I make homemade butter regularly in my own kitchen, usually because there’s really nothing better than fresh butter spread over homemade sourdough bread. Once you understand the basic process, you can use whichever method fits the equipment and time you have.

And don’t throw away the liquid left behind! You’ll also end up with fresh buttermilk that can be used in plenty of other recipes.

How Is Butter Made?

Butter is made by agitating cream until the fat globules begin to clump together and separate from the liquid. The cream will move through several distinct stages. It starts as liquid cream, turns into whipped cream, becomes stiff and grainy, and then suddenly separates into yellow butter solids and cloudy liquid.

Once the butter has separated, strain off the liquid, wash the butter in very cold water and work out as much remaining liquid as possible. Add salt if you like, and you’ve made butter!

What Cream Is Best for Making Butter?

Use a good-quality heavy cream, whipping cream or pure cream with a milk-fat content of at least around 35%. Higher-fat cream will generally give you a better butter yield, but you don’t need to hunt down cream containing exactly 40% butterfat before you can make butter.

I’ve successfully made butter with cream containing around 35% milk fat, and it separates beautifully. Where possible, I prefer cream with a simple ingredient list and without added gums, stabilizers or thickeners. In Australia, look for pure cream or whipping cream rather than thickened cream if you can. In the US, you’ll need heavy cream. Do not use cooking cream as this has a lower fat content to prevent splitting at high heats and will not give you a good butter yield.

The Stages of Homemade Butter

No matter what appliance or method you use to make butter, the process is always the same. The cream will go through 4 stages in order to make butter, starting with the liquid cream you purchase from the store:

1. Liquid Cream – This is the heavy whipping cream as you’ve bought it from the store.
2. Whipped Cream – Soft peaks form as you agitate the cream. Don’t stop now, you haven’t gone far enough.
3. Stiff and Grainy – Keep going and the whipped cream will begin to look rough, grainy or almost curdled. It will become more yellow as it’s moving closer to splitting into butter and buttermilk.
4. Butter and Buttermilk – Suddenly the mixture will separate. You’ll see yellow clumps of butter sitting in cloudy liquid. Once you can clearly see this separation, the churning stage is complete. This transition can happen quite quickly, so keep an eye on your cream once it starts looking grainy.

How To Make Butter in a Stand Mixer

I’m showing you what it looks like to make butter using a stand mixer, but you can make butter using whatever appliance you have on hand, whether it’s a stand mixer, food processor, Thermomix or electric hand mixers. You can also just agitate the cream in a mason jar.

To start, pour the cream into the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment fitted. Start whipping the cream. Start slow and move up to speed 10. I do recommend using the splatter guard when making butter. If you don’t have one, you can also cover your stand mixer with a kitchen towel to stop the buttermilk splashing everywhere when the cream splits.

Continue to run the stand mixer until the cream splits into butter and butter milk. From here, no matter what method you’re using to make butter, the finishing process is the same. 

How To Finish Homemade Butter

Once your cream has separated, the remaining process is the same no matter how you churned it.

1. Strain Off the Buttermilk

Pour the separated butter and liquid through a fine-mesh strainer or cheesecloth over a clean bowl or jar. Keep the liquid. There are lots of ways to use it! If any small pieces of butter end up in the strainer, add them back to the main butter.

2. Wash the Butter in Cold Water

Squeeze the butter as much as you can and then place the butter back into your stand mixer bowl and cover it with very cold water. Turn the stand mixer to a speed 4-5 and allow the butter to wash through the water. It only needs to be around 10 to 15 seconds. Pour the water out over a strainer to ensure you catch stray pieces of butter. You need to wash the butter at least once, but repeating the washing process twice is completely optional. 

3. Work Out the Remaining Liquid

Once the butter has been washed, press and squeeze it to remove as much remaining water and buttermilk as possible. You can do this using clean hands, a spatula, wooden butter paddles or a clean cloth. The less residual liquid left in the butter, the better it will keep. If your butter feels very soft, it means that it still contains too much buttermilk.

4. Add Salt

If you’d like salted butter, add salt to taste and work it evenly through the butter. If you prefer unsalted butter, simply leave it out. I like to whip the butter and the salt together in a clean stand mixer bowl. This ensures the butter is light and creamy and the salt is well distributed. You can just add the salt using a spatula or spoon if you prefer. Salt not only adds flavor to your butter, it also acts as a preservative and gives your butter a longer life. Unsalted butter will spoil faster than salted butter.

5. Shape + Store

Once you’ve added the salt, place the butter into an airtight container or wrap in parchment paper and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. You’ll need to take your butter out and let it soften at room temperature before you use it.

If you wish to keep your homemade butter on the counter at room temperature, I recommend using a French butter bell which submerges the surface of the butter in water. To use this method, you need to change the water in the bottom of the butter bell every 1-2 days.

The cloudy liquid that separates from the butter is traditionally called buttermilk. Definitely don’t throw it away! Depending on the recipe, this buttermilk can be used in things like sourdough discard pancakes, sourdough discard waffles or sourdough biscuits And because we’re obviously going to talk about sourdough around here, I particularly love experimenting with it in bread dough, just like this sourdough buttermilk bread.

How To Flavor Homemade Butter

Once you know how to make butter, flavored butter is an easy next step. You can turn your flavored butter into a whipped butter or even a compound butter. Some of my favorite flavored butters are:

• Whipped Herb Butter
• Honey Cinnamon Butter
• Jalapeno Honey Butter
• Cranberry Orange Butter

You might also like to browse this collection of flavored butter recipes for inspiration.

What Should You Serve Homemade Butter With?

Homemade butter is especially worth making when the butter itself gets to be one of the stars. And obviously, my first choice is this simple sourdough loaf. There’s something particularly satisfying about serving homemade butter alongside bread you’ve made yourself. You might like to try your homemade butter with:

• Sourdough Dinner Rolls
• Sourdough Cornbread Muffins
• Sourdough Baguettes
• Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread

Share the sourdough love!