Why would someone make butter from heavy cream when one can find slabs of butter easily? This was the exactly the same question I asked my friend Shai when she mentioned making butter from heavy cream a couple of years ago. We brushed off the discussion and I completely forgot the whole episode until a few months ago when I ended up with two cups of heavy cream after making whipped cream frosting.
Although cream can be used in various curries, soups, etc., most of my cooking just uses milk or yogurt. Being left with not much choice I decided to make butter to understand the process. Another small reason was that I always worry that I was going to over whip the cream for frosting 
. Well, at the end of the whole process I am very sure I will never accidentally transform cream to butter. It does take some time friends and I was losing my patience since I expected it to happen very fast . I was also using my hand mixer and taking pictures at various stages and it took like what seemed forever, but it would have taken only 15 – 20 minutes.
Coming back to the question of why? Unless heavy cream is on sale, I do not see a reason to make butter from cream. Also, our family is a “cream cheese” family and butter is only for baked goodies. I remember my aunt collecting cream from milk for a few weeks and then whipping it to make butter. Perhaps I will try it sometime in the future. Overall this was a fun experience . Off to making butter.
Make butter from heavy cream
Make butter from heavy cream.
Ingredients:
- heavy cream - 2 2/3 cups
Instructions:
Whip heavy cream until the butter separates. Squeeze to remove as much moisture as possible and wash the butter in ICE COLD water until the water runs clear.
1. Slow down the hand mixer / stand mixer speed when you start seeing the butter separate. Otherwise, you will end up with buttermilk splashing all over the kitchen :).
2. I used the buttermilk to make buttermilk biscuits.
3. Use ICE COLD water to wash butter. You do not want the butter to melt away.
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Pictorial
1. Pour the heavy cream in a bowl.
2. Start whipping using the whisk attachment.
3. The cream is thickening up.
4. It gets all fluffy next.
5. The fluffy mixture thickens up further and is not so fluffy anymore.
6. Few minutes later you can see the color changing from a white to a pale yellow.
7. Almost there. Keep going :).
8. Did the buttermilk start splattering? :). Phew. Reduce the speed of the mixer.
9. Whip for another minute until you see the buttermilk separate completely.
10. Using a strainer, separate the butter and buttermilk. Strain as much liquid as possible. 
11. I got about 1.5 cups of buttermilk. I used the buttermilk to make buttermilk biscuits.
12. Press the strained butter to remove any leftover buttermilk. Strain again. If there is moisture in the butter, it will spoil sooner.
13. Gather the butter into a ball.
14. Using ICE COLD water, wash the butter until the water runs clear.
15. After the first wash. (I washed the butter about 5 times)
16. Butter ready. Store in fridge.
Butter ready for toast
.
Enjoy!
At what stage in the process of making the butter can I add salt, and how much would you recommend?
Thank you
Add the salt to the cream itself. Just a pinch should do.
Thank you for this! Maybe a silly question, but why do you need to wash the butter?
The leftover milk in the butter will cause it to spoil soon, hence we wash it.
I haven’t made butter since I was a kid and stayed at my Grandma’s house. She had a fancy electric churn and when the butter was ready she would let me press it into her butter mold. When she died, I got that butter mold. What fun to see someone still making butter!
OMG drooling here seeing ur pics…nice clarity and butter looks perfect!!
i also do butter from cream when it is on sale!! but I also love the flavor and taste of the buttermilk from it!!
wow awesome idea vardhini…..i bet it tasted much better than the usual butter….very new and very innovative idea…..luv it…..wow i will have to try it…..thanks for sharing…..
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u should have told this before, wihtout knowing what to do with heavy cream, have wasted it two times…next time will try this…lovely pics!
Fresh butter from heave cream,thats fabulous.
lovely and useful post. so this buter will be unsalted right.
Yes.
this is very helpful. thanks for the post.