2.12.2009

Homemade Butter

Or, What to do with leftover heavy cream

For our wedding, we registered for an ice cream maker. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and brides and grooms can get a little carried away with the scanner thingy at Target. Anyway, so we ended up with one, and I've found that it is used more infrequently than I'd like to admit. The primary reason it's not used very often is that the ice cream recipes all require heavy cream, something I don't have on hand very often. When I do have it on hand, after making ice cream, the extra heavy cream just languishes in the refrigerator, until I decide to make alfredo sauce or throw it out.

This weekend, I found another great use for the extra heavy cream! Butter!

When my husband woke up Saturday morning and I told him I had made butter, he gave me a groggy, confused look. "Without a churn?" Yes, we do have a churn, but it is really old and just decorative. I wouldn't dare put actually food I'm planning to eat in it. So how to make butter, at home, without a churn? Easier than you might think!



Homemade butter
1/2 C to 1 C heavy cream
1 pint jar with lid
Arm strength

Pour the cream into the jar & tighten the lid. Shake, Shake, and shake some more. You'll hear sloshing. Eventually the sloshing will stop. If you open the jar & take a look now, you have whipped cream coating the jar. Close the jar again. Keep shaking. The silence of shaking the whipped cream will turn into a thud-thud-thud noise. Keep shaking until the sides of the jar are clear again, and you can see the clump of butter in the buttermilk (see photo). At this point, you can pour off the buttermilk (save it for biscuits!) and you have butter!

For salted butter, add salt sometime in the middle of this process.

Enjoy the toast! And the knowledge of what's ACTUALLY in your butter!


This is part of a Notebook Experiment from one of Amy's Notebook entries once-upon-a-time ago. Thanks to SouleMama for the inspiration!

2 pennies for thoughts:

Amy said...

What a great idea and such a fun experiment. I haven't tried this yet- thanks so much for the idea!! I appreciate your participation!



Anonymous said...

WOW! I never knew this was possible! I have an ice cream maker too - and the same problem! Good job!



Post a Comment

Penny for your thoughts!