Posted by Terminus at 10:09pm Jan 31 '10Is surprisingly easy to make. I guess I always assumed you needed special equipment for this, but if you have a food processor, a stand mixer, a handheld mixer, or heck even a jar with a lid, you can make some too.
In a nutshell, get some heavy whipping cream--you can go for fresh cream from a dairy co-op, organic, or just regular stuff from the grocery store, whatever you want.
Beat the heck out of it until it goes from cream -> whipped cream -> lumpy stuff (clotted cream?) -> butter and buttermilk.
Then separate the buttermilk, squeeze it all out, and 'wash' the butter by running cold water over it and squeezing out the rest of the liquid. Ta-da! Butter. And real buttermilk, not the odd processed stuff they have in stores. See link below for more thorough details (and pictures, which I found immensely helpful).
From what I've read, this only takes about 10-15 minutes with a food processor or stand mixer, but I did it on slow speed with a hand held mixer and it took more like 20 minutes. It was a good 10 minutes or so until it really looked like whipped cream, and about 12-15 or so until it got to the next stage. I got somewhere between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup of butter and about a cup of buttermilk from 1 pint of heavy cream.
Now we've got fresh (and delicious) butter, and I'm going to make my hubby's favorite cake tomorrow (which requires buttermilk--1 cup of it, which is convenient).
In a nutshell, get some heavy whipping cream--you can go for fresh cream from a dairy co-op, organic, or just regular stuff from the grocery store, whatever you want.
Beat the heck out of it until it goes from cream -> whipped cream -> lumpy stuff (clotted cream?) -> butter and buttermilk.
Then separate the buttermilk, squeeze it all out, and 'wash' the butter by running cold water over it and squeezing out the rest of the liquid. Ta-da! Butter. And real buttermilk, not the odd processed stuff they have in stores. See link below for more thorough details (and pictures, which I found immensely helpful).
From what I've read, this only takes about 10-15 minutes with a food processor or stand mixer, but I did it on slow speed with a hand held mixer and it took more like 20 minutes. It was a good 10 minutes or so until it really looked like whipped cream, and about 12-15 or so until it got to the next stage. I got somewhere between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup of butter and about a cup of buttermilk from 1 pint of heavy cream.
Now we've got fresh (and delicious) butter, and I'm going to make my hubby's favorite cake tomorrow (which requires buttermilk--1 cup of it, which is convenient).