Homemade Butter

Oh, readers. You are just the best. Can I count the ways your comments cheered me up this weekend? I cannot. They made me giggle and shudder and feel a lot less alone in the apartment. Thank you so much for all your help and sympathy - it was far better than the smelling salts I thought I'd have pressed to my nose all weekend in despair. A phone call made to the exterminator (who still hasn't shown up, by the way), watching Ratatouille, and spending a lot of time outside with friends also made me feel far more serene about the fuzzy interloper who knocked me sideways on Friday.

I'll admit, I haven't bought traps just yet (I am a coward, that's all there is to it), because part of me is hoping that the little guy was scared stiff by my scream and is cowering in the walls until we move out in 29 days. Pretty please?

(Oh God, that reminds me. 29 days and we still don't know where we're going. Perhaps a mouse-infested apartment is better than no apartment at all?)

But I digress.

Because, in other, far more important news, I spent the rest of the weekend basking in the warm glow of self-satisfaction. Pourquoi, you might ask? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I made my own butter. And let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing that is more astonishingly satisfying than that. Oh sure, baking your own bread certainly makes you feel all capable and strong and resourceful, even, but churning your own butter? It tops that, I swear.

Daniel Patterson, he of the water-poached scrambled eggs, wrote about the glories of making your own butter in yesterday's New York Times Magazine. It all seemed rather serendipitous, because I'd been absolutely itching to make Melissa's cultured butter for days. If you didn't already know it, can I tell you how easy it is? It is so easy. So ridiculously easy.

You take some heavy cream (I used Ronnybrook's), whip it in a bowl for as long as it takes (around 8 minutes) to go from being liquid to whipped to curdled and then to butter. The little bits of butter float in a milky liquid: buttermilk. I always thought buttermilk was just sour and thick (totally delicious, I might add), but as Daniel describes, this stuff is sweet and somewhat watery. (His recipes for using the buttermilk sounded quite good, but I used my buttermilk to soak stale bread for tuna meatballs - finally, yes! The story on those later. This week, though. I promise.)

I drained the buttermilk from the butter, then kneaded the butter in the strainer until it was silky and dense and most of the liquid had been squeezed out of it. I packed the butter in little ramekins and refrigerated it until it was firm but still spreadable.

Spread thickly on a slice of raisin-oatmeal bread, it was a good afternoon snack. I'll be honest, the fact that I'd made that butter myself was largely why I was so enchanted with it. The butter was very mild, and tasted like the pure, clean version of the American butter widely available in supermarkets everywhere. It didn't have much of a flavor profile. I put a knife-tip of the butter on my tongue and could taste the sweet cream briefly, but the flavor evaporated in seconds. The mouthfeel was lovely - cold and creamy - but this wasn't the kind of butter I'd be excited to eat at a restaurant (or frankly, even for breakfast, because truthfully, I'm not really a butter girl, except when I'm in Berlin and can eat Lurpak on Schwarzbrot to my heart's content, though I did use it in the tomato sauce for the tuna meatballs, Marcella's famous one with butter and onion).

So all of this means that later this week, I'll go back to the kitchen counter armed with another bottle of cream and a dollop of yogurt to try my hand at Melissa's recipe for cultured butter. I'm thinking that, on fire-roasted corn at our Fourth of July barbecue, it should taste pretty good, right?

Homemade Butter
Makes 16 ounces of butter

6 cups organic heavy cream (I used one pint)
Salt to taste (optional)

1. Pour the cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk. Tightly cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap and start mixer on medium-high speed. The cream will go through the whipped stage, thicken further and then change color from off-white to pale yellow; this will take at least 5 to 8 minutes. When it starts to look pebbly, it’s almost done. After another minute the butter will separate, causing the liquid to splash against the plastic wrap. At this point stop the mixer.

2. Set a strainer over a bowl. Pour the contents of the mixer into the strainer and let the buttermilk drain through. Strain the buttermilk again, this time through a fine-mesh sieve set over a small bowl; set aside.

3. Keeping the butter in the strainer set over the first bowl, knead it to consolidate the remaining liquid and fat and expel the rest of the buttermilk. Knead until the texture is dense and creamy, about 5 minutes. Strain the excess liquid into the buttermilk. Refrigerate the buttermilk.

4. Mix salt into the butter, if you want. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate.

Comments

[Adrienne]

Oooh, I saw this recipe in the magazine last night as I was doing a little pre-bed reading. It looked delicious and so simple. I tore the recipe page out to try for later. Now that you've tried it, and proved its ease, I definitely have to give it a shot... And the pea soup recipe as well. Yum. Thanks.

[Mary]

Oh boy, I've been wanting to do this and now there just isn't any more excuse. Jeffrey Steingarten did butter making a couple of years ago and wrote about it in Vogue, I wish I had saved that article, because I remember he had some good advice about the flavor, but can't quite recall what it was (this is not a very helpful comment, I know).

[deb]

You beat me to it! I was ALL ABOUT making it this week, and I'm so glad you have done the canary bit for us so I already know it's a hit. I'm with you on the European thing; I don't think even homemade butter will have the flavor profile of the across-the-pond stuff, but it's a start.

[Tony]

Is that a mouse hair I see in that first picture? It's just where the butter and the bread are touching. I could be wrong, but ...

[Lia]

I can't keep up with you! Everything you make looks and sounds so delicious, that I just have to try and make it too. I still need to make the bagels from last week, but then again, why not go all the way and make some homemade butter to go along with them?

Oh and I tried Molly's shortbread waffles this weekend! They were good but had WAY too much butter in my opinion. I was cleaning my waffle iron for days..

[Lydia]

I cut this recipe out of yesterday's newspaper -- cannot wait to try it. I have some wonderful sea salt from Portugal that I'll use as a mix-in. Thanks for leading the way.

[km]

Luisa,
Yum! As a more of an olive oil girl myself, I love the idea of making your own butter and this looks delish. I've also thought that it might be a good way of using some the herbs I have growing. Would you or anyone else have suggestions on how to infuse with, let's say, sage? I have visions of making some no-knead bread (the Jim Lahey Sullivan St Bakery recipe) with melty homemade sage butter.
thanks,
km

[Pille]

Looks like great minds (alias you and Melissa) truly think alike:)

[Jessika]

Oh I love homemade butter!!
The buttermilk is great for baking with. As is the homemade butter of course :).

[shuna fish lydon]

We have a joke in the kitchen when someone is making whipped cream. If they've forgotten about it we call out, "Who's homemade butter is this?!"

But this looks lovely in its intentionality. And all that liquid it eeks out-- it can be used for future projects. Like the proper souring of milk for Irish Brown Bread or Soda Bread. (Or bannock scones...)

This seems like a delightful job indeed. I've just now emailed my dad and asked him too send me the magazine.

[Lisa (Homesick Texan)]

I guess the flavor (or lack) is determined by what the cows are eating. Can't wait to try this!

[Abby]

Oh gosh talk about impressing your guests! I have to try this.

[Bea at La Tartine Gourmande]

I just want to dig into this creamy butter!

[Alanna]

I just knew I wouldn't bet you to posting this, let alone making it!!! BTW my chef friend says that the professional butter-making people say that just-made fresh butter lacks complexity, that if you give it a couple of weeks (and yes, months ... ) that it'll become a still more amazing something else.

[Luisa]

Adrienne - I almost made the pea soup, and even bought mint for it, but then I realized I could use the buttermilk for the tuna meatballs, and well now there's none left. So let me know how the soup turns out!

Mary - I'm doing some google-digging to find what Steingarten said about butter...thanks for the tip!

Deb - it's definitely a start, and I'm thinking that for the purposes of tart-baking, the stuff in my freezer will do very nicely indeed.

Tony - gaaaaaaaaah! You will probably be highly amused to know that I went and clicked on that photo, practically scared stiff. HAHA. :)

Lia - I had the last of those bagels, buttered, this morning for breakfast! Satisfying indeed...get to it, lady! Bake before it gets too hot to do so anymore ;)

Lydia - ooh, enjoy. I'm not really a salted butter person, but something tells me that freshly salted butter tastes totally different than the supermarket kind.

Kirsten - you should just make a compound butter: mince up your fresh sage, beat it into some softened butter, roll it up into a log in parchment paper, then refrigerate it. When you're ready to eat a slice of bread, just put a pat of the compound butter on it and voila! Let me know how it goes - sage butter sounds totally delicious (you can use it as a sauce for ravioli, too! just brown it for a bit in a pan).

Pille - She inspired me for sure!

Jessika - absolutely! Tarts, shortbread, yum.

Shuna - here's my pastry chef question, though: if the buttermilk isn't sour, how do you use it for baking projects that require sour milk?

Lisa - I'm sure that influences the butter, too, but I'm thinking the culturing helps the process along quite a bit. I'll find out soon!

Abby - I know, it's almost a little too much, you know? :)

Bea - I wish I could send you some!

Alanna - that's really interesting. I thought that left to sit for too long the butter would just absorb all the wonky fridge flavors. Yuck!

[ladygoat]

I think butter-making may be an art, one that requires practice but is well worth pursuing (speaking as confirmed butter girl myself). I'm anxious to hear how your next attempt turns out!

[Virtual Frolic]

I just saw the article today and was totally inspired to make some butter! I think I'm gonna try this now! I have some heavy cream in the fridge just waiting to be used!

Also - best of luck with the "ratatouille" problem...if only they were cute like they were in the movie - and would cook for you...but alas..I would be a mess too. Good luck!!!

[Alonna]

Regarding the flavor, aside from the innate taste from the cream itself, did you salt enough? I am curious whether the best butter would come from raw (unpasteurized) or pasteurized cream? I have been using raw milk lately, and recently found a source for raw milk that hasn't been homogenized, so I could skim off the top . . .

[Melissa]

Isn't it fabulous? Who knew it was so easy! Let me know how you think the cultured version compares.

[izzy's mama]

It was funny to read your butter post while in Paris, eating some incredible organic butter. I am now inspired to try butter when we return. I read the Time's article too and can't wait to try the buttermilk recipes.

[shuna fish lydon]

Luisa,

leave it out for a day or two-- it will probably get sour.

remember, all that butter making was once an attempt to "keep" milk, that's why it was all salted...

[Luisa]

Ladygoat - the cream's fermenting as I type...

Virtual Frolic - you'll have to tell me how your butter turned out, did you make it the NYT way or the Traveler's Lunchbox way?

Alonna - I don't like salted butter, so I didn't salt it at all. The subtle flavor didn't really have anything to do with the salt, though. But with access to raw milk, I would love to know how your homemade butter would turn out! Something tells me the flavor would be quite delicious.

Melissa - I will! You've started a movement ;)

Izzy's Mama - isn't that stuff amazing? I think the butter I made simply cannot compare to what you're eating. Enjoy your trip!

Shuna - I'm going to see if the cultured buttermilk tastes like the sour buttermilk I'm more familiar with, too.

[Holly Gates]

Guys, you seriously should culture the cream before churning. It makes a *huge* difference in taste. You don't need to let the culture go too far; just 12 hours of culture will add a nice tang and a depth of flavor completely lacking in sweet cream butter. Churning is also way easier if you culture first, and you will get a higher butter yield. Plus you get real buttermilk you can use for baking.

By the way, you don't want to use yogurt as innoculant; the yogurt uses thermophilic strains. The traditional and more suitable strains used for cream are mesophilic, which you could get from the 'buttermilk' they have at the store. Or you can order culture packs from a cheesemaking supply place.

A friend of mine told me about the times magazine article, which came out right after I churned about 2.5lbs of butter (which combined with leaf lard went to make 6 lattice top pies using fresh picked tart cherries, yum!). It blew my mind that they didn't talk about culturing in the article! Why?? Its not hard, and it really brings the game up for your homemade butter.

I put up a little webpage about my take on handmade cultured butter here:
http://www.positron.org/food/butter/

enjoy!
-Holly Gates

[misha]

i remeber my ma-ma'( that's granny in tenn) making the sweetest butter every week when i was a child. she sang a song "come butter come/ come butter come/ peter's standing at the gate/waiting for a butter cake/ come butter come. she taught me to churn, and i still have her vast old stoneware churn.think i'll give it a try! thanks for the memory.

[ajinwun]

so, so curious: just how much buttermilk DID you get from this recipe?

[Luisa]

Misha - loved this little image of your grandmother churning... i hope your butter turned out as good as hers :)

Ajinwun - I'm not really sure anymore. 1/2 cup perhaps? Maybe a little more? It wasn't much - I only used a pint of cream.

[KT]

AWESOME BUTTER PICTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tiny]

i willlighttobyhomemaderbutter

[Egy Azziera]

Mmm... mmm... when can I eat?

I was stumbling through food recipes the other day and found this remarkably simple recipe for homemade butter. I couldn't believe that it was this easy, so I tried it myself. Sure enough, in less than 5 minutes, I had butter.

Home made butter ... yum! Thank you Luisa!

[online simple recipes]

Oh my God does that ever look good..

This will be on my table before too long.!!!

I love it and I am going to try it.
It sounds so fantastic and the picture is great.!!!

Thanks for sharing.!!!

[Viagra Online]

Curious recipe, I will use it

[Knee ACL]

Nice recipe to make butter, do you have another for margarine ?

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