Making your own butter is easy to do and a fun project for kids. I’ll show you how to make easy homemade butter in 10 minutes using a mixer. You can also make it in a jar!
You’ll love serving your homemade butter with slices of our favorite crusty bread, Amish dinner rolls or banana bread!
Watch our step by step video!
Raise you hand if you remember making butter in a baby food jar in elementary school! Making your own butter is literally just shaking up cream until it separates. So easy. We’ve made it with the kids using a baby food jar and a marble, and I’ve made bigger batches using my Kitchenaid. Both ways work great, it just depends on how much you’d like to make.
What is Butter Made Out Of?
Heavy whipping cream. You can also add a bit of salt. That’s it! Butter is made by whipping cream until it goes past the stage of looking like Cool Whip and begins to thicken and separate. Once it separates you’re left with bits of solid pieces that, when pressed together, form butter and the liquid that is strained off is buttermilk.
If you’ve ever over beaten heavy whipping cream (trying to make whipped cream) and thought you ruined it you didn’t! You just made butter instead, and that’s good too. 🙂
How To Make Easy Homemade Butter Using a KitchenAid or Mixer or Blender
Because I’m lazy, this is my preferred method for making butter. I’ll show how to make it using a stand mixer, but the process for using your blender is the same. Just blend on med-high. It will go through the same stages (cream, whipped cream, then butter).
- Pour 2-4 cups of heavy whipping cream into a mixing bowl.
- Use the whisk attachment and beat on low-med and gradually increasing the speed to med-high as it thickens (if you start out on high the thin cream will spray out of the machine and make a mess).
- The cream will go from looking like cream to whipped cream after a few minutes. Keep mixing!
- After a few more minutes the cream will look yellow and the fat will begin to separate from the buttermilk. Once you see what looks like crumbles of butter sloshing around milk turn the mixer off.
- Pour contents of bowl into a strainer. Place a bowl underneath to catch the buttermilk if you’d like!
- Remove bowl of buttermilk then run the strainer under COLD water. Press butter with a rubber spatula to shape and rinse it. You want to rinse ALL of the buttermilk off of the butter. I usually rinse and press 2x.
- Mold the butter into a ball shape using your hands and give it one last quick rinse under cold water. You have just made unsalted butter, but I don’t like unsalted butter so let’s take it up a notch.
Sprinkle the butter with salt* and press it into the butter using a spoon before slathering it over slices of our no knead crusty bread!
*Use 1/4-1/2 teaspoon for each cup of butter that you make.
How To Make Butter in a Jar
Homemade butter in a jar is a great activity for kids. They burn energy and have the perfect amount of butter to use on a few slices of toast.
- Fill a small jar halfway with heavy whipping cream and a marble. Add the lid and screw on tight to prevent leaks. Note: a small jar (8 oz. or so) really works best. If you want to make it using a quart jar it will take quite a bit of elbow grease and shaking to make butter. I’d recommend using an electric mixer instead.
- Shake rigorously for 5-8 minutes. You’ll notice it thickening into a whipped cream consistency after a few minutes. Keep shaking it until you hear/see a lump forming and liquid sloshing around.
- Drain off liquid (buttermilk) and remove marble.
- Rinse butter under COLD water and press into a ball.
- Sprinkle lightly with salt, if desired.
Easy Homemade Butter Recipe
Easy Homemade Butter
Equipment
- stand mixer
Ingredients
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Pour 2-4 cups of heavy whipping cream into a mixing bowl.
- Use the whisk attachment and beat on low-med and gradually increasing the speed to med-high as it thickens (if you start out on high the thin cream will spray out of the machine and make a mess).
- The cream will go from looking like cream to whipped cream after a few minutes. Keep mixing!
- After another couple of minutes the cream will look yellow and the fat will begin to separate from the buttermilk. Once you see what looks like crumbles of butter sloshing around milk turn the mixer off.
- Pour contents of bowl into a strainer. Place a bowl underneath to catch the buttermilk if you'd like.
- Remove bowl of buttermilk then run the strainer under COLD water. Press butter with a rubber spatula to shape and rinse it. You want to rinse ALL of the buttermilk off of the butter. I usually rinse and press 2x.
- Mold the butter into a ball shape using your hands. You have just made unsalted butter.
- You can sprinkle the butter with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and press it into the butter using a spoon before slathering it over slices of our no knead crusty bread!
Notes
Nutrition
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