You know how to make homemade butter? Have you tried making butter at home? Its preparation is extremely simple for which you only need one ingredient: cream. You dare?
What is butter?
The butter is a dairy derivative whose fat percentage must be equal to or greater than 80%. It is a solid emulsion of water in fat. It is obtained from the milk fat which, in the case of homemade butter, is found in the cream.
Before continuing, let me clarify that cream is also known as whipping cream or heavy cream. Its denomination varies according to the country, but it is the same ingredient.
How is butter made?
Imagine the situation. you put to whip cream in your kitchen robot and you get lost for a moment. When you come back, the cream has been cut. Well there you have your butter or, at least, what will be a homemade butter if you complete the procedure to get it.
But how do you get butter? It is a simple process, at least if we do it at home. To begin with, let us bear in mind that cream is a fat-in-water emulsion. That is, a mixture in which fat globules are floating in water.
When whipping the cream, we subject it to mechanical agitation that causes the breakdown of fat globules, which release their content. During the process, this fat content separates and regroups to form lumps.
Consequently, the fat remains on one side and the water on the other. Well, more than water it is a somewhat cloudy liquid called whey. This, if fermented, gives rise to the famous buttermilk which is often used in American pastries.
In order for us to obtain the greatest amount of butter possible, we must choose a cream containing 35% fat As minimum. It is the cream that we normally use to mount.
Why make butter at home?
Currently it is possible to find very good quality butters on the market, so doing it regularly at home does not make much sense. Starting from a commercial cream we are not going to get a healthier product or one of much higher quality.
In my opinion, the fun of making homemade butter is in enjoy the process. If you like to poke around in the kitchen or if you have children at home, it’s a lot of fun to watch. In addition, it is also a good exercise to learn to calculate the point at which the whipped cream changes from having a firm texture to curdling.
It’s not bad either know how homemade butter is made in case we ever lack this ingredient in the fridge but, instead, we have a couple of containers of whipping cream.
Having made these clarifications, let us see the homemade butter making process more carefully.
Ingredients to make homemade butter*
- 500 g of whipping cream, that is, one that has at least 35% fat.
* With this amount of cream you will get about 175 g of butter.
Procedure to make homemade butter step by step
- pour the cream in the glass of your blender and start beat on medium-high speed. After a few minutes you will see how the cream is taking shape and the grooves left by the rods are increasingly visible. If you stopped right now you’d get whipped cream.
- but you’re going to keep beating and you will see how the cream loses volume and, little by little, the fat part is separated from the whey. The fat will join forming a kind of lumps, bigger and bigger, that will take on a yellowish hue.
- Once the fat has completely separated from the liquid, remove it and place it in a colander so that it releases the excess whey.
- To finish removing the residual serum, it is necessary wash the butter with very cold water.
- You can do it in two ways:
- Leave the butter in the strainer and pass it through the tap stream to wash it. You could also submerge it several times in a bowl of water, which you should change until it does not look cloudy.
- Use a linen or cheesecloth. Place the butter on the cloth, form a ball and dip it several times in a bowl of water while squeezing. As in the previous case, change the water until you see that when the butter is drained, the liquid is transparent.
- Regardless of the method you use to wash the butter, make sure it is it is very well drained. The less water we leave in the butter, the better it will keep.
- Finally, compact your butter and give it the shape you want. Do it using gloves or a wooden spatula to prevent the heat from your hands from melting it.
- start whipping the cream
- Keep beating until cut
- And the fat is separated from the whey
- Leave the butter in a strainer to release the whey
- Wash and drain the butter
Tips for making homemade butter
- As you see the fat and whey separate, lower the speed of the mixer or cover it with a cloth. When the whey is completely separated, it splatters quite a bit.
- Don’t throw away the serum. You can incorporate it into the dough of a sponge cake or a fruit smoothie, for example. If you are not going to use it in a few days, freeze it.
- You may add some ice cubes to the water where you are going to wash the butter. It needs to be very cold so it doesn’t melt.
- You like the salted butter? Add a pinch of salt just after having drained it and knead it well so that it is distributed.
- When you pour the cream into the blender jar make sure you empty the container well. Sometimes the fatty part sticks to the walls and we throw it away without realizing it.
How long does homemade butter last?
Consume it in a week, as much. By not containing preservatives, homemade butter lasts less time than commercial butter. However, you can also freeze it.
To preserve it, store it in the fridge in a well covered containeras butter tends to absorb odours.