Homemade Cultured Butter

Recipe Description:

Start with cultured cream to make a butter that is sweet and sour with complex, wonderful flavors.

Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Cook Time: n/a

Servings: 2 pounds

Difficulty: Moderate

Recipe Ingredients:

1/2 gallon raw sweet cream

1/8 teaspoon mesophilic cheese culture

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Recipe Instructions:

Stir the culture into the cream. Cover the jar with a cloth napkin secured by a rubber band. Leave at room temperature for 24 hours. Then transfer to the refrigerator to chill.

Put the chilled cultured cream in a mixer, food processor, or blender. (Don’t use a Vita-Mix or the mixture will heat up.) Whatever your container is, fill it it to less than half because the cream will expand during the churning.

Turn on the machine. The process of churning may take between 5 and 10 minutes. The cream will go through stages on its way to butter. First, it will expand its volume and become whipped cream. Then the butter solids will start to clump together and separate from the liquid (buttermilk). The whole mixture will appear grainy. Then the solids will clump together even more until you have big chunks of butter floating in buttermilk. Run machine just a minute or so more to complete the process of clumping the butter solids.

Put the butter solids in a bowl. Save the liquid buttermilk for soaking grains (unless it is stinky, which can happen if the cream got very sour).

Repeat with all the cream until all of it is converted into butter solids.

Add cold, clean water to the bowl and use a hard spoon to press and fold the butter into the sides of the bowl. The water will quickly turn clowdy as the remaining buttermilk releases from the butter solids.

Change the water repeatedly. Keep washing the butter until the water stays clear. When the water is clear, you have clean butter! The cleaner the butter, the longer it will last. The washing water isn’t true buttermilk as it is too watered down. It makes good water for animals or the compost.

Pour off the remaining water. Press and fold the butter more to release more water.

Mix in the sea salt.

Transfer the butter to some kind of mold, or you can just shape it into a log or chunks.

Wrap gently in natural wax paper or parchment paper. Put in additional wrappings if desired (to prevent off flavors or freezer burn). Refrigerate or freeze.

Author: Wardeh @ GNOWFGLINS

'Wardee' lives in Oregon with her husband and children, where they raise dairy cows, chickens and goats. Wardeh teaches online classes in traditional cooking, sourdough, cultured dairy, cheesemaking and fermentation (gnowfglins.com). View all posts by Wardeh @ GNOWFGLINS

Recipe Description:

Recipe Ingredients:

Recipe Instructions:

Author: Wardeh @ GNOWFGLINS

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