How to make butter at home

5 from 6 votes

Learn how to make butter at home in 5 different ways with just one ingredient and a few simple steps! Homemade butter is rich, creamy, and absolutely delicious! Most often made with just heavy cream, butter can be salted or unsalted, and ready to use in all your favorite recipes or spread all over freshly baked bread, in just a matter of minutes!

Prep Time15

Total Time15

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 2040kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Stand mixer

Ingredients

600 g Heavy cream use min 36% fat content cold heavy cream

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

The DYI butter making process is exactly the same whether you are using a jar, hand wisk, electric hand mixer or stand mixer. 600g cream will make about 240g butter. In cups, 2.5 cups cream will make about 1 cup of butter.
Pour cold heavy cream into the bowl of your mixer.
Begin whipping the cream at medium speed using the whisk attachment. Once it starts to thicken, turn the speed up to medium-high.
The cream will go through the following stages: 1. it will turn into whipped cream, then 2. stiff peaks form, and then 3. begin clinging to the beaters as the butterfat separates from the liquid. Then, 4. the butter will be solid with liquid on top.
Pour the liquid (butter milk) off of the top of the solid butter and put the solid butter in a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and begin squeezing the butter with your hands to remove the rest of the buttermilk.
Place the butter into a bowl of ice cold water to remove any leftover buttermilk. You may need to do this a few times until the water is fairly clear.
Work the salt into the butter if you are making salted butter. Or, leave it unsalted and ready for pastry making!
For the best taste and consistecy, store the butter refrigerated up to 3 weeks.

Video

Notes

For the best flavor and creamiest butter use a high-quality heavy cream with at least 36% fat
Use heavy cream, not heavy whipping cream. Heavy cream has a slightly higher fat content that is needed to make the butter solidify better
Squeeze out as much buttermilk as you possibly can once the butter is solid. You can also press the butter against the side of a fine mesh sieve with a rubber spatula.
Keep washing the butter off in the cold ice water until the water is almost clear. This is how you know that the buttermilk has been completely removed.
The water must be ice cold to wash the butter or it will melt the butter.

Nutrition