After my spring semester abroad was unfortunately cut short due to COVID19 in March of 2020, somehow I became obsessed with learning how to make butter in my free time. I’m not exactly sure how it started, but one thing I can say is, having a dish of homemade butter readily available comes in very handy. You’ll find homemade butter tastes much different than store-bought, however, when baking, you should rely on store-bought. Homemade butter acts differently compared to storebought so playing it safe in baking is best. Butter is extremely easy to make, just takes some heavy cream, patience, and a dash of salt. You can do it in a blender or in a stand mixer pretty easily. All you have to do is pour some heavy cream in whichever you’re using and start at a low speed. Once you have the consistency of whipped cream, you can go increase the speed to medium, or halfway on your blender or stand mixer. If using a stand mixer, you may want to cover it with a tea towel just to avoid painting your kitchen with heavy cream. Once you see or hear something thudding around in the blender or bowl, turn it off and check to see what’s happening. If you have one big ball of yellow you’ve got your butter, if not continue mixing at medium speed until you do. This process can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes and will be quicker if your heavy cream is at room temperature. Once you have your yellow ball, you need to wash it. This may sound weird, but you essentially are just squeezing the butter in a bowl of ice water until the water is clean. Doing this will make your butter last much longer. The byproduct of your butter creation is buttermilk, which can be used in pancakes, waffles, or even some cake recipes. When washing your butter, you’re removing any excess buttermilk which can cause your butter to go bad quickly.
Daniel Waibel: Blog Post #2
