How To Make Butter

This easy homemade butter is made from just one main ingredient, cream. Use a mason jar, stand mixer, food processor or even a Thermomix to create rich, creamy butter, with fresh buttermilk left over to use in other recipes.

Course Condiments

Cuisine American, French

Keyword Condiment

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 0

Total Time 15

Servings g

Calories 12kcal

Author Kate Freebairn

Equipment

Stand Mixer (optional)
Mason Jar (optional)
Thermomix (optional)

Ingredients

473 mls Heavy Cream (1 pint)
1000 mls Cold Water
5 g Sea Salt (optional)

Instructions

You'll need to use the whisk attachment to make butter in your stand mixer. I highly recommend using the splatter guard too as when the cream separates it can splatter a lot.
Add the cream to the bowl of your stand mixer. Start whipping the cream, using a low speed at first, moving up to speed 10 gradually. The cream should start to get thick as it starts to whip.
Keep the mixer going at its highest speed until the cream separates into butter and buttermilk. It can take anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes. It happens quite suddenly once the cream becomes grainy.
Once the cream has separated and the butter has collected inside the wire whisk, turn the stand mixer off. Strain the buttermilk that has collected in the bowl, collecting any stray butter in a strainer or fine cloth. Squeeze the butter to remove as much buttermilk as you can. Set the buttermilk aside.
Add the butter back to the stand mixer bowl and pour over one litre of icy cold water. Turn the stand mixer on and gradually increase from lowest speed to speed 4 for around 10 to 15 seconds. Once the butter has collected in the wire whisk, turn the mixer off.
Strain the water through a sieve or cloth to collect any stray butter pieces, gathering the butter together squeeze out as much water as possible. You can use a coth for this if you prefer, but clean hands are just fine.
You can repeat the washing process if you want to, but it's ok just to wash the butter once.
If you want to add salt to your butter, add the butter back to a clean stand mixer bowl and add up to 5g of salt. Turn the mixer on, gradually moving from lowest to highest speed until it's light and creamy and the salt has been whipped in. This is optional though and you can use your butter unsalted if you prefer.
Use a spatula to remove the butter from the whisk and bowl and transfer it to a clean container or jar. You should end up with around 140 to 160 grams of butter from one pint of cream.

Video

Notes

A note for cream labels in the US and Australia - In the US, look for cream labelled as heavy cream. In Australia, look for whipping cream that contains at least 35% fat. It will tell you on the label if you look under the ingredients. You will also see thickened cream in Australia which generally contains stabilizers, thickeners and vegetable gums. This will still work to make butter with, however, you will have other ingredients in your butter. The key is to use butter with at least 35% milk fat. Do not use cooking cream as this has a much lower fat content and will not yield much butter when split.

Nutrition