I’ve been off of refined sugars and carbs for about 9 days and I have to say I’m surprised at how sluggish I still feel. Well, I’m surprised and not surprised at the same time.
Sugar is powerful stuff and it’s not shocking that it’s making a powerful statement as it works its way out of my body.
Staying away from sugar has caused me to get a bit more creative with my recipes recently. I’m still doing quite a bit of experimenting from one of my favorite cookbooks, The America’s Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with homemade cultured butter. I always find it fascinating to make store bought staples at home and butter was no exception.
How to make homemade cultured butter
This homemade cultured butter only has two ingredients, cream and yogurt. And it makes a butter that tastes equally as smooth and rich as anything I’ve ever bought from the store.
It does have several involved steps but none of them are difficult and the results are just plain fun. There is something so immensely satisfying about holding a lumpy stick of butter in the air and proclaiming to the stars, “I made this!” Or maybe that’s just me…
Also, buttermilk. One of the byproducts from making homemade cultured butter is real, old fashioned buttermilk like grandma used to make on the farm.
Not the curdled stuff you can make by adding vinegar to milk and letting it sit. Most likely not even the stuff you buy at the grocery store.
Real buttermilk is a byproduct of butter creation. It’s liquid gold in your baked goods.
A very important note about the recipe: one of the final steps involves pressing and washing the butter in ice water to remove any traces of buttermilk. If you don’t wash the butter very thoroughly it has the potential to go rancid quickly.
This happened to me the first time I experimented with making homemade butter. I rushed through the process and my gorgeous stick of butter began smelling sour after a week.
If you wash the butter thoroughly it will last in the refrigerator up to a month or in the freezer for four months.
Homemade Cultured Butter
Ingredients
- 4 cups pasteurized heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized or UHT), room temperature
- 1/2 cup plain whole-milk yogurt, room temperature
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt, optional
Instructions
- Combine cream and yogurt in a 2-quart jar or container with a tight-fitting lid, cover, and shake to combine. Remove lid, cover with a clean kitchen towel, butter muslin or triple layer of cheesecloth, securing in place with a rubber band. Place jar in a warm place, preferably 75 degrees F, and let sit until thickened to the consistency of yogurt, 18 to 48 hours. (If temperature dips much below 75 degrees, culture may take up to 60 hours). Once thickened, remove the kitchen towel, cover jar with lid, and transfer to refrigerator until mixture registers 60 degrees F, about 2 hours.
- Place 4 cups of ice water in the refrigerator. Line a fine-mesh strainer with a butter muslin or triple layer of cheesecloth and set it over a large bowl. Using a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and covered with plastic wrap, whip cream on high speed until cream separates into buttermilk and small clumps of yellow butter, 2 to 5 minutes. Strain butter through prepared strainer for 1 minute. Gather edges of muslin and twist to squeeze butter until buttermilk no longer flows freely from pouch. Remove butter from muslin and transfer to a clean, large bowl; reserve buttermilk for another use.
- Pour about 1/3 cup ice water over the butter. With butter resting in water, use rubber spatula to fold the butter against the side of the bowl, letting water wash over the butter to rinse off any remaining buttermilk. Discard milky liquid, and repeat washing process until water remains clear, about 6 washes. After the final wash, discard any water in the bowl and continue folding butter to squeeze out any remaining liquid; discard liquid. If you want to really get in there, squeeze the butter with your hands at the end. Sprinkle butter with salt, if using, and fold into butter. Divide the butter in half, transfer to parchment paper, and roll into 2 logs or desired shape. Butter can be refrigerated for up to 1 month for frozen for at least 4 months.
Notes
Please read my full post for additional recipe notes, tips, and serving suggestions!
Nutrition
Recipe Troubleshooting
For immediate help troubleshooting a recipe, please email me using the form on my contact page. I’ll try to respond to urgent questions as quickly as possible! For all general questions, please leave a comment here :)
Very cool Jenn- I have gotten out of the habit of making butter and I should do it again. We can get raw milk from a farmer neighbor and I used to just let the cream from that culture by itself on the counter for a few days. Your way is faster and I have read that it actually increases the yield a little bit.
Lovely! I love homemade butter!
I am drooling over this recipe and the photo with the huge chunk of bread!!!!!
Hahaha, that is EXACTLY how I felt the first time I made butter! (Holding it to the stars and proclaiming, YES, I MADE THIS!) I made it pretty much by accident, though, in that I just overwhipped my whipped cream and decided to keep going and make butter — so I’m excited to try this version with yogurt. It looks gorgeous — thanks for posting!
How wonderful! Thanks for sharing :)
G
I love this so much! Started making it today, but I’m having issues finding anywhere in my house that might be 75 degrees and up. :| The only place seems to be one of my 1/2 baths, but ewwwwww? I’m not sure I like the idea of culturing my butter with bathroom bacteria. How did you manage? Electric blanket? :D
I just left it out on the kitchen counter and figured it would take longer. I think it took 3 days to reach a yogurt consistency.
Ok, I guess I was showing my impatience. :) I’ll just expect to wait a bit longer.
I finished this up today. Super easy and super yummy! I used local grass-fed heavy cream and brown cow whole yogurt. The final product was comparable in quality to the Kerrygold Irish butter I bought last week. So happy I can now make it myself. Thanks for sharing. :)
This may not be a recipe that I would make often, but I’m ready to try it. I think I’d double the recipe just so I’d have more in the freezer. I hate to spend the $ for organic butter and who knows how healthy that other butter is? It’s so hard to eat “pure” foods today, but you’re on the right path. I’m not as well behaved when it comes to eating, but I try. Ha!
that looks like the best butter in the history of everrr! I so want to try!!
did you really just say you made butter? You are amazing! I would love to give this a try
If I don’t wanna use cream then what I can use alternative of cream?
There is no alternative, this is a recipe for butter. If you don’t want cream, just buy “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” or margarine and don’t try making it from scratch.
Thanks for your replay. so I must need cream for this?
yes.
Wow, your butter looks so good, Jennifer! I love the unique flavor of cultured butter. When you’re washing the butter, do you keep it in the cheesecloth?
Thanks! I take it our of the cheesecloth first and just press on it right in the water.
I wonder if my yogurt maker would be too warm to culture the cream? Hmmm……
I tried once at making homemade butter – fail. I do not think I got all of the buttermilk out of the butter, like you stated. Will have to give it another try. Looks simple enough and the photos are absolutely gorgeous. :)
I love how simple this is, I infuse my home-made butter with whole spices after toasting them x
Recipes like this make me want to run into the kitchen and give it try! How exciting to make your own butter.
Thanks Trish! On a separate note, did you run into any issues commenting? I’ve noticed several comments listed twice in the moderation queue recently and can’t tell if something is weird with the site or if people are making more than one attempt due to an error message or timeout.
Thanks Jen. Sorry – I think it was just my impatience. When I first hit submit nothing happened so I clicked it again. I should have just waited a second… :p