How to make butter using your food processor

The cow is giving a good 4 gallons a day now so we have plenty of cream for butter making. After skimming the cream like we do here, we add a tablespoon or so of buttermilk to the quart jar from a previous batch of butter making, cover the jar with a tight fitting lid, and set it out at room temperature to thicken. This process is called “ripening” the cream.

Once the cream has thickened or “ripened”, it is ready for butter making. Before you start churning, get the cream to the correct temperature. This is important or it may take forever for the butter to “break” and you may be churning a long time. The best temperature is around 62 degrees but I find it churns considerably faster if it is a bit warmer during the winter months, as warm as 68 degrees. Cooler temperatures, closer to 60 degrees work better in warm months.

Many people worry about the work involved in churning butter. I find the work to be in “working” the butter after it has been churned. Thanks to Joann Grohman, I discovered the ease of churning using my food processor fitted with the dough blade. Using the food processor, with the ripened cream at the correct temperature, the butter breaks in less than 2 minutes. The downside here is that you can only churn a quart at a time. However, with the speed of churning, doing one quart after another is still quicker than churning using my KitchenAid mixer.

Note: You can click on any of the thumbnail photos below to see a larger picture.

(1) Place the quart of ripened cream into the food processor that has been fitted with the dough blade (see picture above).

(2) Turn on your food processor and let it run. If your cream is on the cool side, it may go through a thick, whipped stage like this (see above). If it does, it may mean it will take a bit longer for it to churn. The good news is you can scoop some of this out and use it as thick sour cream.

(3) As you churn, the cream will become more liquid. The sound of the cream in the processor will also change so it sounds like sloshing. You can stop the food processor now and then and examine the cream until you get a better idea how it should look when it is ready to work. In the above picture (above, left) you can see bubbles starting to form and little “grains” of butter coming together. You can stop and work it now but I find it easier to work when I have let come together a bit more.

(4) When your butter is ready to work, it will look like this. Note the larger bubbles in the left picture (above) and the larger globs of butter in the right picture (above).

(5) Now I set up a colander in a bowl (to catch the buttermilk) and lay a piece of butter muslin (or fine cheesecloth) over the colander. The churned cream (now butter & buttermilk) is poured into the cheesecloth, the ends gathered up and the buttermilk drained from the butter. You may want to rock the butter back and forth in the butter muslin to help it drain faster. You won’t get all the buttermilk out. Just get as much as you can.

(6) Now hold the butter in the butter muslin under cool running water to rinse away as much of the buttermilk as possible. Again, rocking the butter back and forth helps to rinse away the buttermilk.

(7) Roll the butter out onto a wet wooden board. I use an old maple cutting board. Now it is time to work the butter.

(8) With the water running gently over the butter, start pressing the butter out flat (above, left) and fold it back over itself (above, right). Do not smear it to spread it or you will get a greasy butter. You want to press and squeeze it. You will see the white buttermilk rinsing away from the butter. Continue working the butter until the water runs clear.

I do this part with my hands, well wetted in the cool water, in warmer weather. I do use a grooved butter paddle in cooler weather but find, even when soaked, it sticks to the warm summer butter.

(9) Once the buttermilk is rinsed away, continue working the water out of the butter by pressing and folding. You are actually squeezing the water out from between the butter grains and pressing those grains together to form a solid mass. If you don’t do this, your butter may become rancid. That said, if you can’t get all the water out, don’t fret about it. It never lasts long enough around here turn rancid!

You can also add salt at this point although I never do. We prefer it without salt. Sprinkle it on, work it in, and taste. Start with a pinch and add more as you taste it.

(10) Gather up your butter. You can dab it with a bit of butter muslin or paper towel to absorb any water droplets that form on the surface of your butter. Using your hand, press it into your butter mold or container. I use Ziploc containers for our daily use.

I also use a kitchen scale and measure out 1/4 pound chunks of butter, form them into balls, wrap in Glad Wrap, and freeze in Ziploc freezer bags for baking. Most of my cookie recipes call for butter in 1/2 cup increments and the 1/4 lb balls equal 1/2 cup and make for easy measuring.

(11) Don’t forget to put your buttermilk into jars! This is great stuff for baking or drinking. It is also used to ripen your next batch of cream for butter making!

Notes:

• If you have some milk in with your cream when you begin, don’t worry. It will still churn just fine. The milk will end up in your buttermilk.
• When we skim the thickest cream off the top of our milk jars and save this for butter, we yield as much as 10 ounces per quart of cream!
• Sometimes, with winter cream in particular, you butter never really gathers well into the grains as in Step 4. If this happens, try melting the entire mess in a pan over low heat. You should be able to skim the melted butter off the top (fat rises to the top) and use it as clarified butter or ghee for cooking.

Finally, EAT MORE BUTTER! Enjoy!

December 26th, 2007