Make Butter, Part 1

We can't all live on a farm. But that doesn't mean we can't make butter. Here is my experience with doing exactly that.

At my local grocery store I discovered they have marked their half pints of whipping cream down to 10 for a dollar. I've sometimes seen them do this after the holidays if they have overstocked on cream or other products. After doing some math I estimated that if I purchased the whipping cream and made butter with it I would stock my freezer with butter for an approximate cost of 40 cents per pound. Right next to the whipping cream I priced the butter at $2.57 and decided that was a huge savings to go with the huge mess I would make.

Here are the steps for making butter.

Pour the cream into a bowl and use your mixer to whip the cream. When the cream is whipped keep mixing. It will get thicker and thicker and finally separate so you have chucks of butter that have separated from the milk.

Drain as much milk as you can off. 

Then you have to squeeze the butter somehow. I'm sure there are tools for this, but I just press it with a spoon to push the milk out of all the little pockets in the butter. 

At some point we tried a new way of squeezing the milk out. We washed our hands really well and then used our hands to squeeze the milk out. It gets your hands a little messy, but worked much more efficiently than the spoon method.

Once you have squeezed as much milk from the butter as you can it is nice to add a bit of salt to taste if that is your preference. 

 Mix it in well and put the butter into a container for storage. This butter freezes well so if you are ambitious you can make enough to stock up for awhile and be eating butter for months.

Happy butter making! Watch for those after holiday deals and have a great and self-sufficient New Year.