Making cultured butter from raw milk is actually quite simple. Did you know that milk isn’t the same throughout the year? Milk nutrient quantity is highest in the spring when the cows are able to eat rapidly growing lush green grass after a long winter of eating mostly hay. I have been sourcing raw milk for over a year now and have seen the changes in our milk quite easily. The cream on top is noticeably thicker and more yellow in the spring. It is quite easy to skim off the top and what better to use it for than to make butter?! I even asked all of you within our Facebook community what I should make with this spring’s raw cream and the answer was resoundingly: BUTTER.
Our farm does not offer cream mechanically separated from the milk so I need to skim it off the top myself. I do this in a very low tech way. I use a turkey baster to simply draw it out of the gallon container. I transfer the cream to a glass jar and then leave it in the fridge for a couple of weeks so it can sour. This process cultures the cream and gives butter its buttery flavor. Of course you can make butter with fresh cream – this is called sweet cream butter. There are more high tech ways to get your cream off the top such as buying a glass jar with a spigot at the bottom; let the cream rise to the top overnight and then pour off the milk through the spigot. You will be left with the cream! I think this idea is genius, I just haven’t sprung for it yet because, while not optimal, a turkey baster has worked just fine for me for the past year!
Ingredients
- 2 cups raw cream (left to ‘sour’ in the fridge for a couple of weeks)
- Pinch salt
Equipment You’ll Need
- Food processor (where to buy)
- Pastry cutter (where to buy)
- Turkey baster (low cost option) (where to buy)
- Glass jar with a spigot (fancy option!) (where to buy)
Directions
Pour cream into the food processor. Turn the food processor on and let it run about 10-15 minutes. The cream will turn from liquid into a thick whipped cream. You will then start to hear a magic ‘sloshing’ sound and notice the whipped cream has turned watery again. Once you see clumps of yellow butter in a milky liquid you can stop. Note: You can use more than two cups of cream but will need to do it in two batches. Two cups is about all that will fit in a typical food processor without overflow. I have overflowed before and it isn’t a pretty cleanup.
Pour off the milky liquid – this is buttermilk. It will have a very sour taste. You can use this to soak grains.
Dump the butter into a bowl and use the pastry cutter to work out the rest of the buttermilk. I scrape off the pastry cutter and just keep cutting, pouring off more buttermilk as it comes out. In order to get rid of all the buttermilk you need to add a little water to ‘wash’ the butter. Pour in a tablespoon of water and then work it into the butter with the pastry cutter. Pour off the liquid and repeat a few more times until the liquid is clear. Keep working the butter until it stops oozing liquid.
Add salt and work it in with the pastry cutter.
Voila – butter! This should yield about a half cup of butter for every 2 cups of cream.
Note – because this is cultured butter, I reserve it for low heat types of food. Save your ghee or store bought butter for frying eggs! Use this butter on bread, grain free coconut flour muffins or even to add to oatmeal.
I also reserve my homemade butter for raw consumption to maximize the health benefits. I use store-bought butter for baking and cooking.
I am looking forward to making lots of butter this spring. Can you freeze cultured butter to use through the summer??
p.s. I posted a video on separating cream by poking a hole in the bottom of the milk jug and it works well and you won;t have to clean the turkey baster! HA! 🙂 let me know if you want the link.
I culture my cream by adding live culture sour cream to the cream(saved off of a previous batch or purchased organic) and placing in a Probiotic Jar for two days at room temperature. I get a much nicer flavor from the butter when cultured this way instead of leaving the cream to “sour” in the fridge. Then the cultured cream tastes like “sour cream” (because that’s what it is) and we use it with mexican food and such. I also seem to get about half again more butter–2 Quarts of skimmed cream (not heavy cream) produces almost 3 lbs. of finished butter. Heavy cream produces more!
I just add some kefir milk to the cream in a jar and leave on bench top for 24 hours before making butter. Voila, cultured butter
I have a good source of raw milk and can easily skim off the cream using a turkey baster, just like our gracious hostess recommends. For the past couple of weeks I have tried making butter with only limited success. I let the cream sit until it is between 60 to 65 degrees. I tried a blender and after about 20 minutes on low speed, the cream just got hot – no butter. I tried a hand mixer, and some little butter particles formed after about 30 minutes. The jar shaking method works, but that is a lot of work! What am I doing wrong? Since butter forms with jar shaking, I conclude that the cream itself is okay. I don’t have a whisk attachment for my hand mixer like some sites recommend. I am reluctant to shell out the big bucks for a stand mixer.