Making Do .....Butter

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oneoffour

Senior Cook
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
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186
Location
Levittown Pa
We are over 65 in Pa. one of the counties in total shut down. We have home delivery of groceries but don't always get what we want. This last delivery no butter but heavy cream. Can we make do and make our own butter from the heavy cream. We have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer with the whisk. Do you just whip it until it sets? Anyone toy with this ? Ice bath? Have the ice cream attachment .Hel please
 
Two ways to make butter from heavy cream:

1. Agitate the cream by churning, or whipping. This causes the fat molecules to clump together, and seperate from the sweet buttermilk. After the fat seperates, was the butter under cold water to remove as much of the buttermilk as possible. Add a little salt and work it in.

2. Freeze the cream. The water freezes, but the fat doesn't. When thawed, the fat is in liyyle pelets, if you will. Strain through a sieve to remove water and milk solids(buttermilk). Ahain wash and salt the butter.

Oh, a third way: pour cream into a jar with a tight fitting lid
Seal the jar. Shake until the butterfat seperates.

The buttermilk can be used in cooking. Don't throw it away.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
Have a bullion strainer and good old cheese cloth. Think I will try #1 TY. Any Idea of ratio? Thinking if a pint of cream yields 1/4 cup it is a big production for a small end.
 
Have a bullion strainer and good old cheese cloth. Think I will try #1 TY. Any Idea of ratio? Thinking if a pint of cream yields 1/4 cup it is a big production for a small end.

I don't know how much a pint yields, but do you know the percentage of fat in that cream? Probably around 40%. Butter is about 80% fat. So, I will guess that you get a bit less than 1/2 pint of butter. Let's see: 1 cup (half a pint) of butter would have 80% fat, so 80% of 1 cup would be 0.8 cups of fat and 0.2 cups of whey and milk solids. 2 cups of 40% cream would have 0.4 x 2 cups of fat which is 0.8 cups of fat. So, that's my best guess. I'm guessing you get about a half a cup of butter from a pint of heavy cream.
 
Oh, and you might want to watch a YouTube video before trying it. I have done it and the hardest part was squishing liquid out of the butter.
 
done that many times, enough that I finally did the math (unpretty)
but the butter is super fresh tasting.
keep it wrapped in foil - butter is prone to absorbing fridge 'odors'


making butter
June 12 2013
2 pints heavy whipping cream @ 2.69 each
took about 20 minutes from chilled heavy cream
KA with whisk

365 gr butter ball
(2 x 2.69)=5.38 $/365 gr = 14.74 $/kilo; $6.68/lb
vs $3.69 for 1 lb store brand butter = $8.13/kilo
side yield: 2 cups / 500 ml buttermilk
butterball_s.jpg
 
Last year, the teacher in the first grade classroom I was in made butter with the kids. Put the cream in the jar, tightened the lid and the kids practiced counting. Passed the jar around the circle and each kid got to shake it while we counted. Sometimes we counted to 100 by 10's or 5's or to 50 by 2's or to 30 by 1's. The kids had a blast and enjoyed their butter on crackers when it was done.
 
Last year, the teacher in the first grade classroom I was in made butter with the kids. Put the cream in the jar, tightened the lid and the kids practiced counting. Passed the jar around the circle and each kid got to shake it while we counted. Sometimes we counted to 100 by 10's or 5's or to 50 by 2's or to 30 by 1's. The kids had a blast and enjoyed their butter on crackers when it was done.

I remember doing that in kindergarten or first or second grade. I did it again when I was in my twenties to demonstrate to boyfriend that butter didn't need to come from a factory. He had been entirely skeptical when I said that butter was made from heavy cream.
 
LOL.. and I remember doing it first time trying to make whipped creme for strawberry shortcake.

Lesson learned:
1. heavy creme makes butter when whipped too long.
and #2. pay attention!

when our butter is on sale for under $5.00 a lb. I buy lots!
 
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LOL.. and I remember doing it first time trying to make whipped creme for strawberry shortcake.

Lesson learned:
1. heavy creme makes butter when whipped too long.
and #2. pay attention!

when our butter is on sale for under $5.00 a lb. I buy lots!
:LOL:
I have made little lumps of butter when I was whipping cream for dessert. Good thing I had more whipping cream. Yes, I went back later and made the first batch all the way into butter. Lesson learned. I haven't done it since, yet.

And yeah, when the butter is on sale for under $5 / pound, I get a bunch and put it in the freezer. It lasts a very long time in the freezer. I don't even bother wrapping it in plastic. Maybe it works well because all the butter I see around here is wrapped in foil. I just write the date on it with a sharpie.
 
I have made butter when not meaning to also.. :ermm:

Butter at Aldi runs under $3 a pound, consistently, so I always have some in the freezer too.. $2.89 this week..

Ross
 
I stock up and freeze butter when it's on special, too. The normal price range around here is under $3 at Aldi, always, up to nearly $5 at the store that thinks there stuff must be worth more than anyone else selling the exact same thing. Sometimes, however, they do offer butter for $1.49 or $1.99 for one pound if you buy $15 in other items. 99 cents is a pretty sweet deal, GG.
 
A pound of butter lasts me more than six months. When there is less than a full pound in the freezer I make a mental note to buy another next time it is on sale.
 
Let's bring this back to the Op's original question. We;ve given advice about making fresh butter. But we haven't completed that yet. How much salt should be added, and where in the process should it be added. How is cultured butter made? Let's explore the idea of making homemade butter.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
Quantity of salt added to butter is not regulated in the industry. This is why most recipe uses unsalted (sweet) butter as their ingredient.

So...
Add to taste. I should think you would use as fine a grain of salt as you have. I would also perhaps think of adding it early in the beating/whipping/churning stage, thereby giving it a chance to dissolve.

Once you've reached the butter stage, I don't think more whipping changes anything.

It is not cheese, so I shouldn't think you would need to wash/rinse it in cold water.

However you could store it in water if you wish. Have no idea of the purpose behind that but it is what I read (somewhere). I imagine that would help to prevent the absorption of other smells/tastes - especially if stored in a cold room/root cellar.
 
In the Amoretti Test Kitchen, I accidentally made butter once while trying to make whipped cream with my stick blender because the stand mixer was in use. Just sayin'.
 

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