It's Better With Butter

Why would you want to make your own butter? Because it tastes better! And it's easy. All you need it heavy cream, salt, and a mixer-although you can get away without using the mixer. If you are using a mixer, you will need to cover it with plastic wrap, unless you're really into cleaning up splatter. Pour heavy cream into your mixer. It doesn't have to be fresh. It can be close to its expiration date. This time I used 3 cups because I had an open container and an unopened one.

You just whip it for about 10-15 minutes on high. It first looks like whipped cream, then starts to deflate a bit, then starts to get a yellowish hue, until finally you hear a clunk clunk noise and you know you have separated the butter from the buttermilk (boy was that a run on sentence or what?). By this time the plastic wrap is so covered in splatter you can't see into the bowl any longer.

Butter:

 Buttermilk:

From 3 cups of cream you end up with about 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk. Strain the butter from the buttermilk using cheesecloth. Usually I do 2 cups of cream so you end up with about 1 cup of buttermilk. I usually add about 1 tsp salt when I use 2 cups of cream. I added a little more this time. Take chunks of butter and smash it into a jar.  By smashing it, you ensure the butter is compact and does not have air. You end up with this much butter:

Then you just cover the butter with a layer of water.  This keeps the air out and the butter fresh.  To use, just pour the water off and spread away.  If you get air pockets the butter will float. I just keep the jar on the counter. I was a little freaked out about doing that at first but the water is keeping all the air out thereby inhibiting bacteria growth.  In the summer when it is really hot, I keep it in the refrigerator - it's just too soft at room temperature.