How to Make Homemade Butter

Making your own homemade butter is as easy as having fresh heavy cream and 10 or 12 minutes. Nothing more. No additives or preservatives. You’re probably curious to see how you can do it, because enjoying the delicious butter you’ve made in the morning makes the day start twice as happy!

Eva, author of Bake-Street, tells us how to prepare a delicious homemade butter, and also some tips if you want to flavor it.

Olive wood board with Bérard knife

Making artisanal preparations at home is undoubtedly very rewarding, but even more so when ingredients we consume daily, like butter, are within our reach in just a few minutes.

Evolution and progress are good; they allow us to reduce the time we spend on daily tasks and make our path much easier. But it is also true that when we create with our hands, following an artisanal process, the feeling that surrounds the result is much more endearing and I might even say romantic.

It’s a moment when we transform food to create with natural ingredients that will accompany us in our daily life. Knowing exactly what it’s made of and understanding the entire process from start to finish.

That’s why the moment I saw this L. Tellier butter churn I fell in love instantly. I felt transported to my childhood remembering everything our grandmother did for her grandchildren, dedicating her time, effort and affection… they were undoubtedly the best snacks of my life.

Handling this butter churn is very simple; with a few turns of the crank we’ll enjoy homemade butter in minutes. Its inner paddle speeds up the process much more than if we used whisks.

The final texture will be different from what we usually buy in stores; the main difference is that commercial butter has 80% fat with 15% water (not counting all the additives to improve flavor, coloring…), and the butter we make at home will have 65% fat versus 30% water, it will be more watery, as well as firmer than commercial butter.

The final result will be smoother, its aroma will remind us of fresh cream and it will be very healthy for us. Not to mention that it came from our hands. Now, let’s see how to make this homemade butter and learn to flavor it for certain preparations.

INGREDIENTS TO OBTAIN 125 G OF BUTTER

• 400 ml of fresh cream or cream with a fat content between 35-38% cold

PREPARATION

Pour the cold cream into the glass container of the butter churn, place the lid with the crank making sure to close it well.

Start turning the crank, holding the top to prevent it from sliding on the work surface. As we turn we’ll see the cream begin to whip; the higher its fat content the sooner it will whip and the more of it we’ll obtain.

Tellier butter making machine

Once the cream is completely whipped continue turning the crank; our goal is to overbeat it to separate the fat from the whey. This step will sound familiar if your cream has ever broken at home while whipping.

Through the glass we can observe how its texture changes, although if you prefer you can open the churn to watch how its texture evolves.

As we continue beating the cream, once it’s whipped, there will come a point when the fat globules, protected by membranes of fatty acids and proteins, will break and allow the fats to come together.

At this step we’ll get an appearance of a broken texture. On one side we’ll have the solids and on the other the butter whey or buttermilk.

We’ll know we’ve reached the right texture because it will be very hard to turn the crank. The manual beating time will take around 10-12 minutes.

We proceed to strain the whey to keep the solids. Place a fine sieve over a bowl, pour both ingredients over it, helping ourselves with a spatula, and let the whey drain well.

To remove as much whey as possible from the butter, press with your hands over the sieve. Remove the butter from it and bring the solids together, forming a ball between your hands.

Note: If you want to make salted butter, this is the time to add the salt, preferably flaky sea salt, such as Flor de sal de Guérande.
The amount would be 1 g of salt for every 50 g of butter.

Wash the butter in cold water, dry with absorbent paper and place in a butter mold or you can shape it.

If we choose the latter option, place the butter on a sheet of cling film, roll it like a candy and spin it on the table to give it a rounded shape. We can do it by hand if desired, but this way the surface will be more uniform.

Store in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Remove and you can serve, on a board like this olive wood one from Bérard, accompanying delicious breads, grissini…

Would you like to be able to flavor your butters?

The process to follow is very simple. Once we have beaten the butter and separated the solids from the whey, it’s time to add the ingredients with which we want to flavor it.

I’ll leave you a couple of ideas to accompany appetizers, toasts, enrich doughs or even to cook fish or meats with it.

Lemon and cilantro butter:
• 125gr of homemade butter
• zest of one lemon
• 8gr of fresh cilantro finely chopped
• 2gr of flake salt
• pinch of pink peppercorns

Orange and cinnamon butter:
• 125 g of homemade butter
• zest of one orange
• ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon

The preparation process is the same as we followed before. Once we have the solids separated, have washed and dried the butter, proceed to incorporate the remaining ingredients that will flavor our butter.

Store in a container or shape in cling film and refrigerate.

Its shelf life is shorter than commercial butters. You can keep it in the fridge for a week.