Making butter

[Sad Eyed Lady]

I am interested in making butter and I understand it can be made from heavy whipping cream. The directions I read said not to use ultra pasteurized. But, that is all I can find even in the organic section of the grocery. Where would I find this? Health food store? If you make butter, how do you make it? Would love to find someone with a cow and get the cream from them, but I don't know anyone with a cow!:(

[Mrs-M]

I remember making butter in elementary school. We used glass jars (canning jars) and with two- to three cups of cream added, the lid of the jar went on and we shook. Eventually (after a good handful of minutes of shaking) a solid lump formed. The solid lump was butter and surrounding the lump was buttermilk.

Same thing goes when whipping cream for a dessert. If you whip whipping cream long enough, past it's readiness, it too will turn into butter! So yeah, you could purchase fresh cream from a farm and make your own so easily. Nice part about making your own, no additives! No colouring, no salt, etc.

[Merski]

I've used grocery store whipping cream successfully and added clean clothespins to the shaking jar. The trick is to get the cream to come to room temp to make butter. Th whip into whipped cream successfully, put the bowl and beaters in the freezer and keep the cream very cold.

[Mrs-M]

Merski. Could you elaborate further on the clothespins? I've never heard of that before. Whenever I make whipping cream using my electric hand-mixer, I never chill the beaters or bowl. I just make sure the cream is well refrigerated and away I go. I've tried chilling the beaters and bowl in the past but found there to be no difference whatsoever in whipping completion time or texture of cream afterwards.

[Gina]

I am interested in making butter and I understand it can be made from heavy whipping cream. The directions I read said not to use ultra pasteurized. But, that is all I can find even in the organic section of the grocery. Where would I find this? Health food store? If you make butter, how do you make it? Would love to find someone with a cow and get the cream from them, but I don't know anyone with a cow!:(
My local Costco sells not ultra pasteurized milk, but it's the only place I've found it. It's a good price - about $5 for a half gallon.

I dabbled with making cheese last year, and found out how difficult it is to get fresh/raw dairy products. As to finding and buying raw milk in the US, that's almost impossible these days. A commercial dairy risks essentially going out of business if it violates the law. Here in California, there is only one, or perhaps 2 dairies in the entire state who legally can sell raw dairy products. Locally, one quart of raw milk costs about $8.

If I recall, some people buy 'cow shares' and get their % of the milk/cream. I'd do that, but locally I haven't even seen a cow in years... If you have cows in your area, you might be able to barter for some raw milk/cream instead of directly buying it. If you trust the cows' health.

Off the subject of butter, you can make and sell cheese from raw milk, but it requires a minimum 6 month aging for any possible pathogens to die off. But it's far better than cheeses made from processed milks.

[Gina]

Here is a link to the 'butter making room' of a good cheese-making forum. Perhaps some of the threads might be of interest to you. :)

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/board,235.0.html?PHPSESSID=1490110603eac4842b51e3b 69c7d83b5



This seems like a pertinent thread: Butter Making - Kitchenaid vs Food Processor

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5824.0.html?PHPSESSID=1490110603eac4842b51e3 b69c7d83b5

[axis9313]

Making butter - that's easy. Just pretend like you're making whipping cream and over mix it. Ask me how I know this - lol. I used regular old store bought whipping cream.

[Stella]

I have done it with grocery store whipping cream. When I worked at Starbucks we would get one drink free to take home per shift. I aked the manager if I could take a Venti cup of whipping cream home and he agreed. We used it to make butter.

[Mrs-M]

Making butter - that's easy. Just pretend like you're making whipping cream and over mix it. Ask me how I know this - lol. I used regular old store bought whipping cream.Axis9313. I've always wondered about this. Wondered as in if I ever turned whipping cream into butter or not. There was one occasion (last Christmas) where the whipping cream had a thicker than usual, heavier than usual flavour than normal, and I do know that I definitely went overboard on whipping time. My thoughts were, "yes, this is as close to butter as butter gets, but yet it still has whipping cream characteristics".

[Merski]

The clean clothespins (one or two) are the dashers or agitators which help keep the cream mixed while you are shaking the jar. What's interesting is when the butter comes (as the expression goes) you will see and hear splashing of the buttermilk. Save the buttermilk for baking...it's great! Also wash the butter with several changes of very cold water, pressing and mixing with a spoon as the buttermilk in the butter might cause it to spoil faster. Can you tell I worked in a 19th century living history museum?

[Mrs-M]

Merski. Thanks muchly for the insight.

[jp1]

As others have mentioned, over whipping whipped cream will do it. When I was a kid, maybe 12 or so, my mom gave me the task of whipping the cream to go on whatever dessert we were having. Her instructions were to "whip it until it starts to peak". Then she left me with a bowl of cream and a small electric hand mixer. 30 minutes later she came back to see what was taking so long. "I don't understand. It's not quite peaking yet." I said. In my mind I was expecting something comparable to the solidity of mountain peaks, and was actually getting quite close by that point...

As for Gina's suggestion about cow sharing, a quick use of the googles turned up this site: http://www.realmilk.com/where1.html I don't know how current it is, etc, but I'd imagine with a little effort you could find raw milk near you. The reasoning behind the "cow share" concept, if I understand it correctly, is that you can't "sell" unpastuerized milk, but if you "own" the cow you can do whatever you want with the milk, including drinking it raw or making butter out of it.

[Sad Eyed Lady]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I have made butter in the past with the whipping cream, but after reading directions that said not to use the ultra pasteurized I started wondering what the reason or reasons were for this. I am still seeking "real milk" with cream and the website jp1 mentioned is amazing with all the places where you can cow share!

[Mrs-M]

Shalom. Is butter (created from over-whipped cream) subtle, or does it have all the distinct qualities of real butter?

[Sad Eyed Lady]

Shalom. Is butter (created from over-whipped cream) subtle, or does it have all the distinct qualities of real butter?
Mrs-M, I would say subtle - that is why I wanted to try to find real milk or real cream - the taste was just not the same as I remember homemade butter having.

[Gina]

Taste of butter depends to a greater degree on what the cow had been eating rather then how the cream is turned into butter. There is a world of taste difference between the butter derived from grass-fed cows grazing in a pasture in the sun compared to cows living in a feedlot/dairy that eat 'inexpensive' generic feed.

[Merski]

In ireland the butter was lovely...I had to keep from opening the packets at restaurants & pubs and licking the foil clean.

[Mrs-M]

Thanks Shalom. I'm thinking I definitely turned whipping cream into butter (once) by over-beating. The end result was a heavier cream with a stronger flavour.

[Tiam]

Perhaps ultra pasteurized isn't the optimum choice, but you can still make butter from it. I've done it many times. I would think if you could find a raw source of milk, you'd be in like Flint.