Homemade Butter

The boys and I decided to have a try at making our own butter. It's one of those projects that we have been meaning to get to for awhile but just never did. All I can say now is ... why did we ever wait?!

This turned out to be the best butter I have tasted! We had it on hot fresh biscuits and the boys slathered their pancakes with it. YUM!

All you need is 16 oz. of cold heavy whipping cream, a jar with a tight fitting lid and a bit of salt. Put 16 oz. of heavy whipping cream into a jar making sure the lid is on tight- very tight! Start shaking the jar and keep on shaking.  Get the kids involved - my boys had a blast helping to make this!

The butter will go through several stages. First it'll feel all sloshy like liquid and then you'll see the liquid coating the sides.

After that, you'll see it beginning to pull away from the sides and seperate into liquid and solid. Just keep on shaking!

About half way through, I just had to take a peak ~

Oh, my ~ it's looking GOOD!

We weren't sure exactly how long to keep shaking; the instructions said to shake until you see solid surrounded by liquid so we put the lid back on and continued to shake, shake, shake! After about an hour (total) of shaking the jar we had.... BUTTER! 

The next step is to place a cheese cloth inside a strainer and pour the butter into it. Strain the butter into a big bowl, using a spoon to gently press the butter to make sure all the liquid comes out.

Let all the liquid drain off and set that aside. Don't throw the liquid out ~  save it as it's butter milk! 

Rinse the butter under cold water until the water drains clear. Strain the butter again to get most of the liquid off. This liquid you can discard -it's just water.

Transfer the butter into a bowl and gently press the butter with the back of a spoon and drain off any excess liquid.

Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and mix well. Place butter into a mold or a bowl, cover and refrigerate or freeze it to harden the butter.

If you're freezing the butter, line your mold with a plastic wrap and then place butter into that mold. This makes it easier to remove the frozen butter from bowl.

After the butter is hard, you just lift the plastic wrap out of the bowl and completely seal the butter. Then pop each individual butter mound into one large freezer bag.

BUTTER!

I don't think we'll be going back to store bought butter any time soon!