Ingredients
- Cream
- Salt
Directions
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We begin with cream. I used superfresh local stuff, but the carton at the grocery store will do just as well. The important thing is to use cream at room temperature. The difference between doing this with cold cream and room temperature cream is the difference between an hour of churning and ten minutes.
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Next, get a container with a tight-fitting screw-on lid that will not spurt cream all over your kitchen when you shake it vigorously. It also needs to hold at least twice the volume of the amount of cream you’re using.
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Begin shaking the container up and down in a rhythmic pattern. After 3 minutes, it’ll start feeling less like you’re shaking a jar of liquid and more like you’re shaking a jar of whipped cream, because essentially, you are.
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The next 3 minutes will feel like you’re shaking a brick. This is the hardest part. You will wonder “is this doing anything?” Just keep at it.
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All of a sudden, within just a few shakes, the jar will begin going “shuk shuk shuk” and you’ll be able to feel the butter separating from the buttermilk. Keep doing that for about four minutes until you have lots of buttermilk in there.
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All of a sudden, within just a few shakes, the jar will begin going “shuk shuk shuk” and you’ll be able to feel the butter separating from the buttermilk. Keep doing that for about four minutes until you have lots of buttermilk in there.
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All that water puddling under the butter needs to come out. The best way is with a marble cutting board, but since I don’t have one of those, I used a wooden one. Simply squeeze the water out of the butter with a wooden spoon or spatula. The latter will double as a scraper to regroup between squeezings. To do away with the drained water, tilt the cutting board and/or use paper towels to absorb it.
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If you feel like the butter is getting melty at all, just stick it in the fridge for a few minutes before going back at it.
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If you want to salt your butter, add about 1/4 tsp salt and stir into your finished butter. I think the reason to do this last is that it doesn’t interfere with the draining process by absorbing water and embedding it in the butter.