Making Home-Made Butter

Making butter is one of those impressive things to do, but it is incredibly easy!

When you over-whip cream in an electric mixer, butter begins to form. You should consume unsalted butter within a few days but adding salt (natural preservative) to this recipe will mean it stores for 2 – 3 weeks instead.

Method

• In a chilled electric mixer, place 500ml of cream and whisk it. After a while it will turn to whipped cream with stiff peaks, but then it breaks down and separates into milk and butterfat. Set a muslin cloth over a colander and pour everything into the muslin cloth.

• This will allow the buttermilk to drain off the butterfat, separating the mixture. Place the buttermilk in the fridge to use later.

• Tightly squeeze the butterfat in the muslin to make sure all of the buttermilk has drained out. One way to make sure all the buttermilk has drained is to submerge the butterfat (inside the muslin) in a bowl of icey cold water. The water should turn cloudy. Tip out the cloudy iced water and repeat this process 3 times until the water is clear. This is important to do because any left-over buttermilk will make the butter taste sour and accelerate spoiling.

• Spread out a sheet of baking paper on the bench and spread the butter onto it. Use the baking paper to roll the butter into a cylinder shape.

Tips

• Remember you will get about half the amount of butter compared to the initial amount of cream used. You can use any amount of cream knowing the quantity of butter will end up half.

• Buttermilk can be used for various recipes, such as Buttermilk Pancakes.