Psst….I have solid gold in my Fridge

The art of making homemade Butter!

I have a confession to make……I have solid gold in my fridge. Yes, solid gold, well when it is cold it is solid. What I am talking about here is homemade butter. To me it is almost like gold. I honestly use butter almost every day. It is personal preference for me and my family. With recent studies suggesting that certain diseases were at an all-time high because of the use of margarine (yuck!) and other oils instead of butter. One of many articles that support butter. link:  

I find that any more these days there are studies to support both sides of consuming butter. I take all of those studies with a grain of salt. How I see it, we as human beings didn’t survive this long on earth by eating something that was made up in a lab. (Sorry about that little tangent.)

Back to making butter. 

There are a couple things you are going to need to make butter:

-Heavy Whipping Cream (I use organic non ultra-pasteurized or raw cream. See why below.) 

-Something to mix the Heavy Whipping Cream (Stand mixer, hand mixer, jar with lid, or food processor.)

-Water to rinse the butter

-Strainer 

-Container to put the finished butter in. (I prefer glass. See why below.) 

-Salt (optional)

Instead of me trying to explain each and every step I made an awesome video for you to watch. 

FYI: I am no film maker. Everything that is in the video is solely my opinions, if you do not like it please do not watch. Thank you!

If you do not wish to watch the video: 

There are a couple stages that happen during the butter making process.

Basically all broke down the process looks like this:

1.    Poor heavy whipping cream into the mixing apparatus. Add in the salt if you want salted butter. (As a general rule of thumb you can use ¼ to 1 teaspoon of salt. It all depends how salty you want your butter and how much cream you are using.) (I do not salt my butter see the reason why below.)

2.    Turn on mixer and the cream will turn into whipped cream. (Yummy!)

3.    Keep the mixer going until the fat (butter) separates away from the whey (watery part) (I want to point out here that butter whey is different than the cheese making whey.)

4.    Take the butter and whey mixture and strain out the whey. (You can keep the whey and use it, drink it.)

5.    Wash the butter until the water comes out clear. (I know it sounds crazy but needs to be done to help the butter keep longer.)

6.    Put the washed butter in a container and store away either in the refrigerator or freezer.

7.    Enjoy your homemade butter! (Be sure to check your butter every time you use it. I recommend smelling to make sure it hasn’t gone rancid. Check for mold growth as well. If has mold on it toss it away.)   

 

You can chose between jars, food processor, stand mixer or hand mixer (not pictured)

This will be my mixer of choice.

Mixing has started!

The butter press. It is pretty awesome to use!

Going into more of the reasons I do what I do when I make butter.

1.    Using Organic, raw or non-ultra-pasteurized heavy whipping cream: This is personal choice for me and my family. With all of the excessive use of pesticides and herbicides in our food this days I want limit my families’ exposer to these hazards.

2.    I prefer using glass because glass doesn’t hold on to food residue like plastic. Also it is a personal preference.

3.    I do not salt my butter because if I want to drink the left over whey or use the whey in a recipe I don’t want it salty.  

Hope that this helps anyone wanting to make butter for the first time or for the new homesteaders out there that want to be more self-sufficient.  

Trying making butter to give away as a gift.

Try to experiment by adding in herbs or sugar.

So many different ways to make butter!

See how easy it is to make butter! 

Until Next Time!