How to make Sweet Cream Butter from scratch

Have you ever thought about making your own butter? This is a fun activity to do with kids. It can also be made in a jar by shaking it back and forth until the separation of butter and buttermilk occur. While making butter is a fun activity do you realize it can be a very useful skill to have. Here in the north snow storms are a common occurrence, as a result the store shelves are often picked clean. What would happen if you walked into the store and there was no butter or margarine? Knowing how to make butter from scratch will give you one more option and since this seems to be a lost skill in the modern era there is a pretty good chance that what you need will still be on the store shelves.

One quart of heavy whipping cream will make about 1 pound of butter and a 1/2 quart of buttermilk.

Ingredients

1 container of heavy whipping cream. - I used a pint size which will make about a 1/2 pound of butter, but a quart will easily fit into the bowl.

Pour the cold, heavy cream into a chilled mixing bowl. Turn the mixer on and go slowly up to high speed and let the cream go through the stages of whipping cream, heavy whipping cream, and finally, two separate products of butter and buttermilk.

This is what heavy cream looks like - keep mixing.

As you can see the cream will start to change its look as it breaks down. - remember to scrape the sides occasionally to get all the heavy cream mixed in.

As the butter begins to separate from the buttermilk, turn the speed to low.

The butter is now ready to be drained.

Drain off the buttermilk from the butter.

As you can see you now have butter and buttermilk. the buttermilk is done and can be put in a container and placed in the refrigerator for making pancakes, biscuits or anything else that calls for it.
Your not done just yet.

The directions call for you to knead the butter with a wet wooden spoon or a rubber scraper to force out any remaining milk as you need. I have found it easier to do this by hand.

When it seems that all the milk is out, refill the bowl with ice water and continue kneading to wash out all the remaining milk. I found it easier after rinsing it in water to run it under cold water. I keep kneading it under cold water till the water runs clean to make sure all the buttermilk has been removed. This is important because any buttermilk left in the butter will cause it to spoil.

Shape the butter as desired you now have sweet butter.

If you want salted butter mix in a teaspoon of flake salt ( you can use regular table salt, though I would start with less and work up to a teaspoon. Remember it is always better to add less to start because you can always add more but you can't take it away)

If you want bright yellow butter instead of white add butter food coloring.