Today on a Slice of Sourdough Bread: Homemade Butter (Video Tutorial)

Published Categorized as Sourdough Tips

Sometimes the simplest things are the best and most heart-warming. You know, a cup of tea after a long day, an umbrella from a stranger on a stormy day, sunrise on a way to work, the sound of bees on a flowering apple tree. And fresh homemade butter on freshly baked sourdough bread. I eat a lot of butter and the idea to have it fresh whenever I need it is really inspiring to me. So I did it at home.

Homemade butter for sourdough bread

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Today on a slice of sourdough bread: homemade butter (video tutorial)

Homemade Butter Recipe

Step-by-step tutorial on how to make homemade butter in 5 minutes. Perfect with a slice of sourdough bread.

  • Total Time: 2 hrs 15 mins
  • Yield: 1 serving 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 180 ml whipping sweet cream at room temperature
  • 1 jar with a lid
  • 1 marble (optional)

Instructions

  1. Couple of hours before you will make the butter, take your whipping cream out of the fridge. The warmer the cream, the softer the butter will be at the end.
  2. Prepare a jar and pour the whipping cream in to be 3/4 full. Throw in the marble, tightly cover the jar with a lid and start shaking vigorously (great for your arms, however, make sure your forearms are relaxed, otherwise they will be sore for a day or two). If you find shaking difficult, you can use electric mixer or whisk. It might be interesting for you to see the different stages of butter forming so just sneak peak in between couple of times.
  3. Shake for a minute until you see whipped cream forming.
  4. Shake again for a minute or two until you first see the whipped cream to become rough in texture (cottage cheese like) and then break down to curds of butterfat and buttermilk.
  5. Shake again and you will soon see these butter clumps coming together into butter.
  6. Pour off the buttermilk and shake the butter again to make sure there is as little as liquid left. If you won’t use it straight away it is advisable to wash the finished butter with cold water and to knead it or squeeze it to really make sure there isn’t any liquid left that would spoil the butter. Take out the finished butter and store it in a container or wrap it into a parchment paper and store it in a fridge for couple of days or in a freezer for couple of month. Or use it straight away (the possibilities to resist are very small, trust me). From 180 g of whipping cream I got 100 g of butter and 80 g of buttermilk. The shaking time may take longer than 4-5 minutes, depending on the whipping cream.

Notes

  • Choose your own quantity and adjust the size of the jar accordingly. Always fill the jar to be 3/4 full so you will able to shake the cream.
  • Author: Natasha Krajnc
  • Prep Time: 2 hours
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Category: spread, side dish
  • Cuisine: European, American

It’s that simple: Shake it (whipping cream), ’till you make it (homemade butter). The process of shaking up the cream is called churning.

How is the butter formed from the whipping cream?

Let’s start with milk. Milk is a stable emulsion (a mixture of two liquids that are unmixable) of tiny butterfat globules (5-10 %) floating in a water-based fluid containing soluble minerals and vitamins. Whipping cream is similar to milk with the difference being that it has a higher percentage of butterfat globules (15-35 %).

Butterfat globules are like droplets of fat covered in a membrane. When we start shaking the whipping cream, globules collide and the fat bursts out of the membrane – i.e. fat gets free. The freed fat finds other freed fats and this is how eventually butter and buttermilk are separately formed.

Homemade Butter Recipe

Ingredients for the Homemade Butter

Serves: 1 hungry and bread loving person

  • 180 ml whipping sweet cream at the room temperature*
  • 1 jar with a lid
  • 1 marble (optional)

*choose your own quantity and adjust the size of the jar accordingly. Always fill the jar to be 3/4 full so you will able to shake the cream.

Short Instructions to Make Homemade Butter

Shake it (whipping cream), ’till you make it (homemade butter, that is)!

Long instructions to Make Homemade Butter

  • A couple of hours before you will make the homemade butter, take your whipping cream out of the fridge. The warmer the cream, the softer the butter will be at the end.
  • Prepare a jar and pour the whipping cream in to be 3/4 full. Throw in the marble, tightly cover the jar with a lid and start shaking vigorously (great for your arms, however, make sure your forearms are relaxed, otherwise they will be sore for a day or two). If you find shaking difficult, you can use electric mixer or whisk.
  • It might be interesting for you to see the different stages of butter forming so just sneak peak in between couple of times.
  • Shake for a minute until you see whipped cream forming.
Homemade butter
Left: whipping cream. Right: whipping cream after 1 minute of shaking.
  • Shake again for a minute or two until you first see the whipped cream to become rough in texture (cottage cheese like) and then break down to curds of butterfat and buttermilk.
  • Shake again and you will soon see these butter clumps coming together into butter.
  • Pour off the buttermilk and shake the butter again to make sure there is as little as liquid left. If you won’t use it straight away it is advisable to wash the finished butter with cold water and to knead it or squeeze it to really make sure there isn’t any liquid left that would spoil the butter.
  • Take out the finished butter and store it in a container or wrap it into a parchment paper and store it in a fridge for couple of days or in a freezer for couple of month. Or use it straight away (the possibilities to resist are very small, trust me).

From 180 g of whipping cream I got 100 g of homemade butter and 80 g of buttermilk.

The shaking time may take longer than 4-5 minutes, depending on the used cream.

Try this easy homemade butter today!

Ready homemade butter
Left: After 2 minutes of shaking. Right: After 3-4 minutes of shaking.

So, now you have buttermilk and butter. You can drink buttermilk or add it into the bread or pancakes and you can make some delicious finishing touches to the butter, like adding salt, honey, fresh herbs, spices or anything else of your choice.

Use this homemade delicious butter in your freshly baked bread. It will work on sourdough recipes, such as:

Making butter yourself is very rewarding!

If you’re looking for a vegan alternative, check out this recipe on vegan buttermilk that might work for you.

Have you ever prepared homemade butter?

Making Homemade Butter – FAQs

How do you make butter at home?

Making butter at home is easier that you might think. In my recipe I used whipping cream, but you can also use heavy cream. This will yield an unsalted butter result, so add a pinch of salt if you want salted butter. Shake the cream, or beat the cream with a hand or stand mixer for an easier time. Separate the solids (butter) from the liquids (butter milk), and voila!

Is it cheaper to make your own butter?

It may or may not be cheaper to make homemade butter, depending on the cost of heavy cream in your area. Generally, heavy cream is more expensive than butter, so it’s important to consider the cost of the ingredients before deciding whether to make your own butter. But while making butter may not always be the cheapest option, it can still be a worthwhile and satisfying endeavor.

How long does homemade butter last?

Homemade butter can last for up to several weeks in the refrigerator if stored properly in an airtight container. However, the actual shelf life of homemade butter can vary depending on factors such as how well it was rinsed to remove all the remaining buttermilk, how it was made, and how it’s stored.

To maximize the shelf life after making butter yourself, it’s important to store homemade butter it in an airtight container in the coldest part of your refrigerator. You can also wrap the butter in wax paper or parchment paper to help preserve its freshness. It’s also a good idea to label the container with the date you made the butter, so you can keep track of how long it has been in the fridge.

How can I make homemade butter more creamy?

The secret to creamy butter is a few things: good heavy cream, adding a pinch of salt, softening the butter, incorporating cold water, whipping the butter, and letting the butter rest. Don’t be afraid to make butter at home!

By Natasha Krajnc

Hi! My name is Natasha and I'm specialized in home sourdough bread baking and currently based in Slovakia - a very small country in Central Europe. My bread baking story began in 2011 when I decided to give up commercial yeast. I felt tired all the time (especially after eating bread and other foods made with yeast), I wasn’t motivated to do anything, had trouble concentrating throughout the day, my abdomen was bloated and I was like a trumpet on steroids – basically, I was quite a wreck. I was a big bread lover (and still am) and having to stop eating bread was quite hard at that time but I felt I was on a right way to give my body a chance to heal itself.

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