Today on Guilty Kitchen, is the start of a new series that I like to call: Culinary Fundamentals. It’s going to be a back to basics approach to food, kind of like my way of showing you that anyone can cook from scratch. Really from scratch, like butter and mayonnaise and bread. Those kinds of things.
It hit me a couple of days ago, when we were in the back lot of forest behind our house foraging for mushrooms, that everyone should know the basics. Some people have never made salad dressing from scratch, or tomato sauce or even bread! This may not be shocking to you, as you may be one of those people, but to me everyone should know how to do them. In my mind, it is absolutely necessary for people to possess these skills. Why? Because everyone should know how to make their food from scratch, it’s just that simple. It’s such an easy skill to cook, and something everyone must do. We shouldn’t have to rely on the commercial brands to do it for us.
Anyone who’s ever compared the taste of homemade to commercial, can say with confidence which is better. I’m sure there are big brand versions of some things that poeple prefer, but that might only be because they’ve never attempted to make it themselves.
Take today’s first lesson, butter. A simple recipe: cream, salt if desired. That’s it. Most commercial butter contains one more ingredient, colour. It is added to make the butter have a yellow cast to it, resembling the natural hue of grass fed cattle’s pure milky goodness. Natural butter can be anywhere from off white to very yellow, depending on the time of year and the cow’s diet. But the stuff you buy in the store is dyed to make it look more natural…a bit of an oxymoron if you ask me.
Tasting fresh, homemade butter is better. It just is. You made it (in a very short period of time, no less) and you can taste the difference in the finished product.
So I hope the lessons that I will be sharing every Monday will be of value to you, my readers. I hope I change a few minds.
One Year Ago: The Perfect Brownie
How to Make Butter (Step by step tutorial)
Yield: 1 cup butter
Prep Time: 1 minute
Cooking/Active Prep Time: 10-15 minutes2 cups heavy cream (organic would be best)
1/2 tsp salt
1. Pour everything into the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attached. Set to 8 or 9 (almost high).
2. Keep going…. It’s still whipped cream at this point.
3.  Now we’re talking, you’re so close. Keep going though. You’ll be whisking  at high speed for approximately 10-15 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when there is a substantial amount of  liquid visible in the bottom of the bowl.
4. Done!
5. Now you must remove the solids from the buttermilk with your hands, squeeze it into a ball and continue to squeeze as you hold it under cold running water. You must rinse the buttermilk away from the butter to avoid it spoiling too quickly. Once the liquid that gets squeezed out is clear, you’re good to go!
6. To store your butter, just wrap in plastic or keep in an airtight container and keep in the fridge. You can also use the buttermilk if you wish as you would any buttermilk.
7. This butter should keep as long as any butter, as long as you’ve rinsed it very well and store it in the refrigerator. I’d say you’ve got a couple weeks at least.
Delicious recipes to use up your fresh butter:
Brown Butter Roasted Banana Bread on Guilty Kitchen
Brown Butter Spiced Apple Cake Sandwich Cookies on Guilty Kitchen
Idle Hand Bars on Guilty Kitchen
Compound Butters Tutorial on Guilty Kitchen
Homemade Twix Candy Bites on Guilty Kitchen
Perfection
Wow! Thanks. I think I have read how to make butter one time but alas, it slipped from my memory bank like everything else these days. I’ve made a lot of things but never my own butter. I wondered why the European butter I recently bought was much lighter in color than the other organic butter I typically buy. Interesting. I love your idea for Mondays and look forward to being further educated!
Awesome tutorial! Thanks so much for sharing.
I love this. It still surprises me when people don’t know that you can make your own whipped cream. Much less butter. Super tutorial. I should start making my own butter!
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I like the sound of this series, Liz. Right up my alley! Thanks for the reminder that making butter is really just one step past whipped cream.
Yes! I do this all the time with the cream from our dairy cows. I also recently taught 4 high school culinary arts classes how to make butter and vanilla pudding, both from scratch. They loved it (especially the pudding). The only difference is that I use my blender instead of a mixer! It’s even faster…as in, 2 to 3 minutes on low and you have butter. Wonderful. I can’t wait to see more of your tutorials!
Awesome Zoe! I only wish I had a cow or a goat out back to milk…I would be out there every day milking them and loving every minute of it. So far we’ve got some chickens, but I’m ever hopeful for the future! Thanks for the tip about the blender!
Great idea for a series. I’m with you on the notion that people should gravitate towards making more from scratch. Mayo is the perfect example of how much better the homemade version is. And I’m impressed that you forage for your own mushrooms. Where did you learn to do that?
Honestly Irina, I took a bit of a risk there. We went for a walk into the woods and I thought “Hey, it’s mushroom season. Let’s see if we can find some chanterelles!” and we did. Then we brought them home and checked our mushroom books, Google, etc. until we knew that they were the right mushroom. Luckily, chanterelles are pretty easy to identify, but I wouldn’t be trying it with any other kind of mushrooms without taking a course!
Wow, it’s that easy, huh? Now I need a mixer!
Try a blender Ethan! According to Zoe, it works just as well. You could even just shake it in a jar for a really long time. Same results. No excuses.
i love the sound and imagine the wonderful taste of that whipped butter!
Discovered your blog from today’s link in the Food News Journal. I am following you now!
Love the idea of making your own butter. Tried my hand at making my own bagels this weekend because having to pay 95 cents for a plain bagel at my local store was putting me over the edge. Even posted some photos of them on facebook.
Love reading your guilty kitchen blog.
Wow – I love this. I always figured butter was just what came after the whipped cream stage in the mixing process, but now I know to do the squeeze part afterward! Very exciting. Thanks for the how-to. It’s funny, I consider myself an experienced cook, but have never made some of the most basic things!
I’m always guilty of making butter by accident – meaning I walk away from the whipped cream just at the right moments and suddenly, there is butter. Oh, sugar. Now, for my next trick…
In all seriousness, my next endeavors in butter-making will hopefully include cultured butter and butter made from fresh cream just from the cow. (We still need to get the cow, first.)
I am here to say that this was the best butter I have had 🙂
I love that you are going back to basics – and by golly – butter is a basic, or do I mean base? Perhaps basis for living…
I love the idea of making butter from scratch and I had no idea it was so easy! I also think the idea of back to basics is great, and I’m looking forward to trying some of these ideas.
How long will these butter keep for? Is it the same as butter you would buy at the store?
Roasted, I’m not positive how long homemade butter will keep but I’m thinking it wouldn’t be as long as store-bought, only because there’s a chance you won’t get all the buttermilk out of it and that’s what spoils fastest. But butter freezes quite well so just stick it in the freezer if you won’t be using it within a week or two!
Thank Zoe!
What kind of blender do you use to make butter? Thanks
I have never tried ina blender as it may get messy, but any high powered blender would work.
I’ve changed it in the recipe to reflect this tidbit, but I’ll reply here as well. It should last a couple of weeks or more, depending on how well you rinsed it and if you keep in the refrigerator or not.
Wow, sounds incredible. I just was lamenting about that ‘fake’ butter. Awful.
I’m a fan of the real deal and making it, even better. Great recipe. Also, I love: http://userealbutter.com/ 🙂
Mmmhhh, yummy! Perfect with some good bread and cheese.
Cheers,
Rosa
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Yum. Yum. Yum.
Oh, to have a goat again.
I spent almost every morning and evening for 3 years milking my precious dairy goats (yes, that is pural. Fantastic memories. Fabulous health benefits. I would choose a goat over a cow any day except that getting a satisfactory amount of cream from goat is fairly rare.
5 AM milking sessions – sometimes spent half asleep leaning against my goat’s furry rib cage – definitely didn’t all feel wonderful. But the memories? Absolutely.
I know there will be pitfalls (5am….yuck) but the glorious milk would be worth it…and the cheese, and butter. I hear Noma has a fantastic goat butter.
What a wonderful idea, Elizabeth! Novice and seasoned cooks will benefit so much. Thank you!
A fun way to make butter with kids. A glass jar with lid, add organic heavy cream, add a glass marble. Shake. Keep shaking. Eventually the marble will be quiet, keep shaking. When you can hear the marble again, then your butter is finished. Follow the above instructions for removing the buttermilk. Enjoy!
I learned how to make butter when I tried to make whipped cream and I over did the process of whipping….never thought of saving the butter milk. Every day we learn something new. Thanks.
I’ve done butter (a friend of mine owns a pet Jersey cow) and in high summer, when the grass is green and lush, the butter from an actual grass-fed cow is yellow. Very yellow. Astonishingly yellow. It was so amazingly yellow that I took a picture of it next to a stick of “real” store-bought butter.
Flickr image here.
Wow, that IS amazing. What a difference!
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When I was a kid we made butter at school with a mason jar and a clothespin… Everyone took turns shaking the heck out of that jar. I haven’t made butter since, but this may inspire an experiment. I just learned how to make home made ricotta and was awed by the difference in quality. Thanks!
My husband said the same thing about doing butter in school! I must have missed out on that one, though I did make butter for a science experiment in Grade Four. I have always been a foodie…:)
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This popped up on Tastespotting today. i make butter all the time but still in a mason jar. Fill jar half full of cream and a pinch of salt and shake. For that amount it take 10, maybe 15 minutes of shaking if I am tired. Easy, fast and same results – just smaller quantity. If you dont have a mixer or blender, give this a try. I havent tried a larger amount but if you have a larger jar, I am sure a larger batch would be possible but I imagine the shaking would take longer.
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