Homemade butter, sour cream, herb butter and spreadable butter
Ingredients
- ½ liter (2 cups) whipping cream
- ½ dl (1/4 cup) buttermilk
- ½ teaspoon salt
Directions
Mix the buttermilk and whipping cream in a bowl.
Let it rest covered at room temperature for 24-48 hours. Until it becomes thick.
When it's thick, you can put it in the fridge for a few days until you need to make butter from it.
Beat it (it is called churning). First into a normal whipped cream, and then continue until the fat separates from the whey.
You will not be in doubt when it finally happens. It becomes separated into two distinct parts. Some liquid and a large lump of solid fat that is stuck in the whisk. The liquid is homemade buttermilk, and can be drunk or used to bake with. The fat is butter.
Squeeze as much of the buttermilk out of the butter as possible. Press it between your hands. If the butter is warm and soft, it can be difficult to handle. Put into a bowl of cold water until you can.
Finally you should knead the salt into the butter.
Keeps for a week or so in the fridge.
A fake homemade butter
This is just a little hack to get both this homemade and the store bought butter to taste of more.
Put ½ to 1 cup (1-2½ dl) buttermilk in a coffee maker. Let it drain until it is as thick as Greek yogurt. You will end up with about half the amount drained.
Mix it well it with 250 grams of soft butter. The more you put into the butter, the more it will taste like "fresh cheese". It is good method if the butter is to be eaten as an accompaniment to a meat dish. Not so much for a Nutella spread.
You don't have to use drained buttermilk for this though. Just mix in ½ to 1 dl (1/4 to 1/2 cup) drained Greek yogurt into the butter. It tastes almost the same.
The Butlers Butter - Beurre Maître d'Hôtel
Not a recipe for butter, but with butter, but a classic restaurant trick / recipe to spice up a butter up. You mix:
- 100 g (3.5 oz) butter
- 15 g (½ oz) finely chopped parsley (½ pot of them with soil from the supermarket.)
- 1-2 tsp lemon
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch pepper
You probably want to roll the mixture into some baking paper so you get a long roll of butter. Cool down until serving.
Spreadable butter
This can be easily spread onto bread even when cold.
Mix 4 parts butter to 1 part oil. That is 80% butter and 20% oil. You can use tasteless oil or virgin olive oil as you prefer. Virgin olive oil is very flavorful. So you might want to use a smaller portion to begin with.
Or 1-2 tbsp (1/4 dl (1/8 cup)) oil to 100 g (3.5 oz) butter.
Notes
Once the cream has been mixed with the buttermilk and has thickened, then it is sour cream. It can be used anywhere you would normally use sour cream. Just stir it together and put it in the fridge.
You can also drain the soured cream for 12-24 hours and then get a slightly sour and living probiotic Mascarpone. See how to drain it in my Mascarpone recipe .
If you want to make American butter you just skip the fermentation with the buttermilk starter. Just go directly to the whipping. Americans, for some sad reason, does not use sour cream for their butter. This is a lot less flavorful.
You can "flush" the buttermilk out of the butter by keeping it down in the cold water as you knead it between your hands. This makes it taste of less, but makes it last longer. As in the industrial version.
All of the above methods can of course be combined to make your own favorite butter.
Apparently you cannot use "ultra-pastuerized" heavy whipping cream for this recipe.
