Friday, April 9, 2010

Homemade Butter

Did you know that organic butter costs $7/lb? I thought it would be cheaper to make butter than to buy butter, at least the organic kind. After searching several stores, I finally found the one in town that sold organic heavy whipping cream. I bought two pints for $6.98.

I had read several different blog post about how to make butter and it seemed fairly easy. You just put the cream in your mixer, blender or food processor and turn it on.

Little did I know just how long it would actually take.

This is when the cream started to thicken. See how it clings to the beater?

This is when you would call it quits if you wanted whipped cream.
The butter has just started to form. This was about ten minutes into the process. I was beginning to worry that I had messed something up since the fat wasn't coming together like I knew it should. But I finally made it to this stage. From here, I put the butter curds in a strainer over a bowl and gently rinsed with cold water.

I added the butter back to the mixer and added a little more water to completely rinse all of the buttermilk away. I processed in the mixer for a few second and gave it a final drain.
This is the finished product. Sweet, beautiful organic butter.
Now here are the details. From two pints of cream I was able to make 2 cups or about a pound of butter. So I saved about two cents making my own butter. But I also got almost 3 cups of buttermilk out of the process. Now I don't know how much I saved there because I don't buy buttermilk all that much and if I do, I certainly don't buy the organic kind since I can't find it.

So I don't know if I will make butter on a regular basis or just buy it already made. All I know for sure is I am super thankful I didn't have to churn this by hand the way my grandma did.

3 comments:

Jen said...

Not sure where you live, but we can get organic butter at trader joe's for about $4.50/lb I think. Costco has it even cheaper, but they only have salted organic butter at my store.

I've been wanting to make my own, but the whipping cream is so much more expensive here than the butter.

The Good Wife said...

Hey Jen,
I have heard good things about trader joe's and costco but there isn't one near me. :(

Girl Friday said...

Okay, it's official. You're my hero! I'm at work so I can't see the pictures right now, but I will def look this up when I get home. When I was younger, one of the ways the adults would distract the kids was by getting them to make their own butter. You can put about a half a cup of heavy cream in a mason jar and have them shake it until it's butter. The method you did here seems much better, now I don't have to hire an army of 7 yr olds to make me butter! lol. Thanks for filling up my weekend with your wonderful recipes/ideas.