How to Make Butter

Last week we shared that one of the advantages of homesteading is having access to real, Whole Foods like raw milk. Dirt under our fingernails, sunshine on our faces, and unprocessed foods are the way God designed us to be happy and healthy. Another source of happiness is the butter that comes from the raw milk because there is nothing like biting into a piece of warm bread dripping with melted butter 😋

After milking the cow (which can happen once or twice a day), we immediately strain the milk into sterilized jars and chill them as fast as possible. We chill the jars by placing them into an ice bath or by storing them in a refrigerator that we keep colder than normal. After they sit overnight, the milk and cream have fully separated. We then scoop the cream off the top and are left with “skimmed milk”! And with the cream we make butter 🙂

STEP #1

After separating the cream from the milk, place the cream into a food processor or blender and let it rip! This is Téa White making butter for her family 😃

STEP #2

It takes 5-10 minutes for the butter to separate from the buttermilk. Blend it just enough for you to get curds, you’ll lose the separation if you over whip the cream.

STEP #3

Strain out the buttermilk and save it for Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes! These pancakes are a hearty breakfast perfect for hardworking farm kids (and adults).

STEP #4

Place the butter curds into a bowl of ice water and knead out the rest of the buttermilk. Change the water out and repeat until the water is clear of buttermilk.

STEP #5

Enjoy!

If you need more visual help than the image below should clear things up. Butter isn't hard to make but you do need to make sure you don't either under or over whip the cream in your blender or food processor. The top three images of the photo below best illustrate the stages the cream goes through as it is whipped into butter. Just make sure you have actual clumps - or "curds" - swimming in the thinner buttermilk and you're good to strain it.

(your butter will either be a creamy white or yellow color depending on the breed of milking cow and their diet; jersey cows - like our Daisy - produce cream that makes a rich yellow butter)