MYO Butter at home! You might be surprised to learn you can make your own butter for considerably less than what you can often purchase it for…
Surprisingly even store-bought butter often contains hidden additives that you might not be aware of. A few that we’ve seen include “natural flavor”- which is to compensate for the lack of flavor when a very poor quality cream is used, “citric acid” and “annatto.”
Annatto is a type of coloring that is sometimes added to give a yellowish appearance to butter made from poor quality cream.
The ones most concerning though, are the brands that contain BHA/BHT. BHA and BHT stands for Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). These are food additives that are used as a preservative to keep food from spoilage but are known carcinogens.
In an effort to put fewer chemicals in our family, we’ve opted for making our own butter, which I’ve discovered is actually cheaper than buying it anyway.
MYO Butter
You’ll Need:
1 pint Heavy Cream
dash salt
If you have the option to purchase grassfed organic cream at a reasonable rate, go for it, the butter will be fabulous, if not, purchase a high quality cream and double check the ingredients to ensure that it doesn’t contain additives.
Pour the cream into a mixing bowl and turn it on medium-high, walk away. Let it run 3-4 minutes, check it, it should be a nice light fluffy whipped cream at this point.
Let the machine continue to run, walk away for 2-4 minutes, come back and check it. You’ll be able to tell when the butter is ready, as it will collect in the whip of your mixer and the remaining thin buttermilk will be in the bottom of your bowl.
Most of the butter will accumulate in the whisk.
Separate the butter from the buttermilk. If you’d like, you can strain the buttermilk through a piece of cheesecloth. Transfer the buttermilk to a container, cover and refrigerate or freeze. This mixture is excellent for use in baked goods!
The butter can then be salted or transformed into compound butter, if you prefer. Alternatively, you can press it into butter molds to shape it into traditional sticks of butter.
How to Salt Homemade Butter
Now, if you’d like, you can salt your butter. We add 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground pink Himilayan salt per pint of whipping cream.
This is the base recipe for delicious homemade Ghee, also known as clarified butter.
Is Homemade Butter Cheaper?
Making your own butter is often cheaper than purchasing butter, plus it’s healthier. It really depends on the price and quality of heavy cream in your particular location. A low quality cream will yield less butter.
You may be wondering how much cream you’ll need to make your own butter at home. One Quart (32 oz) of good quality heavy cream yields 1 pound of fresh butter. One Quart (32 oz) of good quality heavy cream yields 1 pound of fresh butter, plus a pint of fresh buttermilk.
Budget101 Breakdown:
One Quart Heavy Cream $3.12
Buttermilk is 7.1¢ per ounce, this recipe yields 2 cups (or 16 ounces) of buttermilk $1.14 worth of buttermilk
1 pound of butter is $3.54
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Total to purchase 1 pint buttermilk and 1 pound butter= $4.67
The MYO butter is $3.12
That’s a savings of $1.54 or 33%
Delicious Flavored Butter Recipes
Use this simple homemade butter as a base for any number of delicious flavored butter recipes. Here are a few of our favorites:
- Cinnamon Honey Butter
- Cranberry Butter
- Herb Butter
- Honey Pumpkin Butter
- Raspberry Butter
- Strawberry Butter
- Taste of Autumn Butter
Homemade Butter Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 32 oz Heavy Cream
- ½ tsp Salt (optional)
Instructions
- Place heavy cream in bowl of a stand mixer.32 oz Heavy Cream
- Attach the whisk attachment and whisk until butter separates, about 5-7 minutes.
- Separate butter from remaining buttermilk, strain and squeeze the buttermilk out through a cheesecloth.
- Salt the butter, if desired.1/2 tsp Salt
- Transfer the buttermilk to a container and use or freeze within 3 days.
- For best freshness, Store the butter in the fridge.
Equipment
Notes
If you altered the ingedients above by doubling or tripling the recipe, you may also need to change the pan/dish size and adjust the cooking/baking time.
It says heavy cream and salt. You didn’t say how much of each.
The amounts don’t need to be exact. The separation process happens regardless of quantity. In this case, it is a pint of cream and a dash of salt.
A dash is about 1/8 of a teaspoon.
Salt is not actually necessary. It is more of a traditional ingredient. It helped keep the butter from spoiling as quickly.
It says a Pint of heavy cream and a dash of salt. It depends entirely on how much butter you want to make, you can use as much as you want or as little as 1 c of cream.
Glad this was here. I was trying to remember he to do this with the stand mixer. My neighbor’s grass fed cow is producing more than they can use so I am getting a lot for free right now.
I will be making as much as I can and freeze it.
Thank you for sharing this, I don’t know why or how I didn’t already know that butter was just heavy cream. That’s crazy simple!!
Our neighbor has two cows and sells heavy cream very inexpensively as they always have an abundance. I’ll be making my own butter from now on.
Make Homemade Butter with a Mason Jar
When we were kids we used to make butter by putting heavy cream in a mason jar, then dropping in 2 clean marbles. Seal the top and shake and shake until butter forms.
My brother and I would sit across from each other and just toss the jar back and forth for awhile. It was fun, kept us entertained and the butter was delicious.
Never fill the jar more than halfway with the cream, else it won’t have room to properly transform into butter.