I love butter and unfortunately my cholesterol count shows it. We had the opportunity to have some really good butter while in France. Good butter is starting to infiltrate the States, but it still isn’t the norm yet. A few dairies are making cultured butter: Vermont Creamery, Plugar, and Organic Valley are all very good but not quite what we had in France. France takes its butter, like all food, very seriously. French butter usually is made locally to the region you are in. It is more than likely made from raw milk. Grass fed raw cream butter has the most nutrients because it has not been pasteurized or homogenized. With raw milk the milk and cream is allowed to separate and the cream is skimmed off the top. Depending on the state or country you are in you may have access to grass fed raw milk and I recommend using it to make butter if you can.
Making homemade cultured butter may not be economical if you just want some all purpose butter. If you want great tasting butter for bread, pancakes, sandwiches, and baking it is totally worth making your own because of the taste. Here in Georgia you can’t get raw milk for human consumption. The best I can do is grass fed cream and yogurt from a local provider. You will see a noticeable difference using grass fed cream as well. The butter will be much more yellow than if you were to use regular heavy cream. I’ve found the best provider in my area, Atlanta Fresh Creamery has the best cream and whole milk yogurt for making cultured butter. We try to support local companies as much as we can. Local is usually a hundred times better so why wouldn’t you want to?
The process of making the butter is pretty simple; it’s just a bit of waiting. Once you have the butter you’ll also have left over buttermilk to do with what you want. You could make biscuits, pancakes, etc… or freeze it for future use.
Here are the steps (recipe follows):
Combine cream and yogurt in a large bowl and whisk just until smooth.
Cover with a kitchen towel. Let the mixture sit in a warm area of the kitchen for about 24 hours or more. I’ve found that if you let it sit longer the tangier it will be.
After 24 hours taste the mixture. It should already taste like butter!
Chill mixture for 1 to 2 hours. You want the mixture to be about 60ºF. If it’s too cold allow to come up to temp.
Using a stand mixer pour the mixture into the mixing bowl.
Cover the outside of the mixer with plastic wrap as the mixture will splatter once it separates.
Using a wire whip attachment start on low and increase the speed to high.
The mixing process does not take long, 3 to 5 minutes.
It will go from whipped cream to stiff whipped cream to butter and buttermilk.
Once it “breaks” (the point where the buttermilk and butter separate) you will know. The mixture will start to splatter and slosh in the bowl. You will see the bright yellow butter has separated from the butter milk.
Drain into a fine mesh sieve lined with cheese cloth into a bowl. With a rubber spatula squeeze as much buttermilk as you can out of the butter.
Do what you want with the buttermilk (drink it, make biscuits, pancakes, etc…)
Transfer the butter to a bowl of ice water and rinse.
Knead the butter as you rinse. Do this 4 to 6 times until the water is clear. This is to get the residual buttermilk out of the butter fat. The butter will spoil much quicker if you skip this step. *At this point you can knead in the salt if you are making salted butter.
Remove from ice water and dry with paper towels or butter muslin. Get the butter as dry as possible.
Shape and wrap butter in parchment paper and refrigerate.
Note: While wrapped in the parchment paper I use a sushi mat to shape into a log then I flatten in to a more cube shape with the back and side of large knife. You can use molds also.
Store in the refrigerator or freeze.
Cultured Butter
32 oz Heavy Cream (preferably grass fed with a high milk fat content)
1/2 cup Whole Milk Greek Yogurt (grass fed if possible)
Sea Salt to taste (optional)
Instructions:
Combine cream and yogurt in a large bowl with a whisk just until smooth.
Cover with a kitchen towel. Let the mixture sit in a warm area of the kitchen for about 24 hours.
After 24 hours taste the mixture. It should already taste like butter!
Chill mixture for 1 to 2 hours. You want the mixture to be about 60ºF. If it’s too cold allow to come up to temp.
Using a stand mixer pour the mixture into the mixing bowl.
Cover the outside of the mixer with plastic wrap as the mixture will splatter.
Using a wire whip attachment start on low and increase the speed to high.
The mixing process does not take long, 3 to 5 minutes.
It will go from whipped cream to stiff whipped cream to butter and butter milk.
Once it “breaks” (the point where the buttermilk and butter separate) you will know. The mixture will start to splatter in the bowl. You will see the bright yellow butter has separated from the butter milk.
Drain into a fine mesh sieve lined with cheese cloth into a bowl. With a rubber spatula squeeze as much buttermilk as you can out of the butter.
Do what you want with the buttermilk (drink it, make biscuits, pancakes, etc…)
Transfer the butter to a bowl of ice water and rinse.
Knead the butter as you rinse. Do this 4 to 6 times until the water is clear.
*At this point you can knead in the salt if you are making salted butter.
Remove from ice water and dry with paper towels or butter muslin. Get as dry as possible.
Shape and wrap butter in parchment paper and refrigerate.
Note: While wrapped in the parchment paper I use a sushi mat to shape into a log then I flatten in to a more cube shape with the back and side of large knife.
Store in the refrigerator or freeze.
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