Easy Homemade Butter

Have you ever made Homemade Butter? If not, I bet you never realized just how easy it is! All it takes is a one (maybe 2) ingredients to make fresh easy homemade butter that you can flavor however you’d like!

So how do you make butter from scratch?

Butter is just heavy cream that has been whipped past the point of whipped cream and separated into the butter fats and the butter milk. It’s that simple!

The easiest way to make homemade butter is with a hand mixer or stand mixer. If you have strong arm muscles and about 30 minutes, you can also make this by shaking the cream in a mason jar. My kids (Coco and Ash) thought this was fun for about 5 minutes then gave up and gave the jars back to me LOL.

Can you make butter from milk?

Unfortunately no. Butter has to be made from heavy cream or heavy whipping cream. Milk does not contain enough fat to make butter.

I choose to make butter the easy way – in my stand mixer. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can add your cream to a bowl and use a hand mixer or even use a blender. To start making the butter, you’ll add your cream to the mixer or bowl and start mixing on medium low and just keep it going.

As it thickens (and gets less “splashy”) you can increase the speed to medium high. I’ll take you through the steps the cream will go through so you can make sure you’re on the right track.

As you begin beating the cream, it will first start to thicken and almost look frothy then turn Into a thick whipped cream. If you want to make a really yummy whipped cream, all you have to do is add in a couple tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract! But, lets keep going for the butter!

If you’ve gotten to the whipped cream stage, you’re almost done. Just keep beating! In just a few more minutes you’ll have butter! You’ll notice the mixture getting “splashy” again and the liquid start to separate from the solids. The solids are your butter, and the liquid is your buttermilk!

Once your cream has separated like the photo above, you can turn off your mixer. You’ll want to strain the mixture into a bowl. You can reserve the buttermilk for other recipes (like these Caramel Apple Pancakes) or discard if it you won’t be using it. After straining the butter, run the butter under cold water while moving it around with a spoon. This will rinse off all of the excess buttermilk and give you a longer shelf life.

Do you need to refrigerate homemade butter?

Not necessarily. I leave mine on the counter for about a week. If you’d like to leave yours our on the counter, here are a few things you can do to ensure it stays fresh:

• Make sure to rinse the butter quite a few times before storing to remove every bit of buttermilk.
• Add salt. Salt helps to preserve the salt and it stays fresh longer than unsalted butter.
• Make sure your home does not get too warm. If your home tends to get above 75 degrees, I would refrigerate the butter.
• You could also use a butter bell to store your butter for an air-tight seal for extra freshness. But this is optional.

If you want to add seasonings or salt to your butter, you can do it at this point. Just mix it in with a fork or spoon and enjoy!

How much butter does cream make?

The cream almost always separates in half. It might vary slightly depending on the fat content of your cream, but if you use 2 cups of cream, you’ll end up with close to 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of buttermilk.

Once your butter is strained and rinsed well, you can store it in an air

What to make with your left over buttermilk:

• Honey Cinnamon Scones
• Cinnamon Sugar Banana Donuts
• Bacon Cheddar Biscuits
• Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

Print Recipe

4.91 from 10 votes

Easy Homemade Butter

Prep Time15 mins

Course: Side Dish, Snack

Cuisine: American

Servings: 1 cup

Author: Coco and Ash

Equipment

• Stand Mixer, hand mixer, or mason jar

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon salt (leave out for unsalted butter)

Instructions

• Add your heavy cream to a bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.
• Beat on low speed then increase to medium as the cream thickens and makes less of a splash.
• You'll notice the cream will turn to whipped cream. Keep beating past this step to make butter.
• The cream will then separate into a liquid and chunky solids. The liquid is your buttermilk. The solids are the butter.
• Strain the everything over a bowl to catch the buttermilk if you plan on keeping it.
• While the butter is still in the strainer, rinse it with cold water while stirring it. This will remove any excess buttermilk and give you a longer shelf-life for you butter.
• You can now add in the salt, or any other seasonings you'd like!