Easy Homemade Butter
Katerina Pavlakis 
Stick Blender Magic: Turning Old Cream into Fresh Butter
“Keep whisking until it splits”, said the instructions.
“You’ll know when you see it.”
So I kept my finger on the stick blender button.
.
The cream went from liquid to frothy to velvety to sticky…
Still no sign of splitting and I was getting worried it would solidify in a clump and jam the blender.
.
And then it happened - a liquid started separating.
Suddenly there was so much of it I had to pour it off (buttermilk!).
And just like that, I made my first lump of butter.
.
I have been meaning to try this ever since my very first podcast episode, when Kirsten told me about how she made butter herself with reduced-to-clear cream from the supermarket.
My cream today was definitely out of date and on the verge of turning into sour cream - absolutely high time I used it up!
Now my butter might even qualify as French style ‘cultured butter’.
So easy, so delicious, so thrifty.
And it only took 5 minutes and my trusty old stick blender. (Even easier to make butter with it than to make homemade mayo.)
.
At long last, now I know what to do with those double cream left overs - a regular occurrence in our house now, ever since we started a tradition of stewed fruit with cream for dessert.
My husband won’t go near any cream that’s not super fresh, but he agrees that the cultured butter is lovely.
(In any case, double cream is known to last a long time, and is a useful little magic ingredient to keep in your fridge).
.
Winning on all fronts!
.
---
.
If you fancy to give homemade butter a try, here's what I did:
YOU NEED
- double (heavy) cream
- salt (otpional)
- a stick blender
HOW TO
- Pour some cream into a jar or jug that fits your stick blender
- Only fill half - you need space for the cream to expand.
- Add some salt if you prefer salted butter.
- Immerse your blender and start blending.
- Watch the cream move through several stages: frothy, velevety, sticky, clumpy. Keep blending.
- You may need to scrape some of the creamy mass off the blender and back into the jug to keep blending.
- When you notice a milky liquid forming and separating from the creamy mass, you are there: you have now butter and buttermilk.
- Pour off the buttermilk. (Great to use in all kinds of baking - pancakes, bread, cookies - in casseroles, and as a marinade for tender chicken.)
- Pat and press the butter into shape with a spatula, and keep pouring off the liquid. Do this several times to squeeze out as much buttermilk as possible.
- Gently rinse the lump of butter with cold water until water runs clear water - this is to remove the last traces of buttermilk.
- Place the butter in a ramekin or greaseproof paper and keep in the fridge.
.
Enjoy!
.
---
Note: Homemade butter does not keep as well as factory made (because not all of the buttermilk i.e. protein can be removed by hand). But it's so delicious it will get eaten very quickly anyway!
PS. Did you know that recent research and the discovery of previously unknown essential fats confirms that butter is actually good for you?
