Making butter

It turns out, making butter is really, really easy and really, really worth the effort! All you need is heavy cream and a jar. Make sure you don't fill the jar more than halfway with cream, screw on the lid nice and tight and just shake, shake, shake! After a while, it turns into whipped cream. Just keep shaking! Eventually, it starts to separate. The fats clump together to become butter and the liquid can be poured and saved to make baked goodies. The liquid is known as old-fashioned buttermilk and is not the same as cultured buttermilk, which is what you get at the supermarket. Once the butter has separated, pour the buttermilk into a separate container and fill your butter jar with cold water. Shake some more, then pour out. Fill the butter jar again with cold water, shake and pour out. You're trying to squeeze the rest of the buttermilk out of the butter, otherwise the butter will sour very quickly. Once the water pours out clear, you're done!

I have to say, homemade butter tastes soooooo much better than store-bought butter. After having it smeared on a nice slice of whole wheat toast, I said to my hubby, "I don't think I could ever settle for store-bought butter ever again!" In the future, I may consider making it in my mixer though all that shaking was rather fun. I guess it will depend on how much butter I plan on making. Lol! Also, the old-fashioned buttermilk tastes really good too! I could definitely just down a glass of that at the end!

The next thing I might want to do research on is letting the cream sour a little before making it into butter. I read that doing this gives the butter a nice flavor that some creameries feel is important. I'm not sure if they add yogurt or buttermilk or just let it stand. 

Anyways, it's totally worth it to make your own butter. Try it!