By Gwen Brown Leave a Comment
Making this homemade butter recipe has become a family tradition. Every year on Thanksgiving, I grab an extra carton of heavy whipping cream, and pour it into a jar with a pinch of salt, and seal it up with a tight fitting lid. We usually do Thanksgiving with relatives, so the kids shake the jar on the way there, and they continue to shake away at it as the Mamas whirl about in the kitchen making all of the final preparations.
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Everyone gets to take a turn. Sometimes they’ll complain that it takes too long, or that it’s too difficult. And that’s such a fantastic time to talk about how many people through history and even in present day have to work VERY hard every day to have food. We should be SO grateful. SO very, very grateful.
The cream goes through stages, starting with just a milky sloshing…then to a light whipped cream texture, and finally to a very heavy whipped stage that makes you think that nothing is going to happen. And then suddenly, like magic, you hear liquid sloshing around again, and when you peek in the jar there is this glorious huge ball of butter!
I gently dry it off with a paper towel, squeezing out any trapped buttermilk. This year, I happened to have scored some cute little tin gelatin moulds from an antique store for .25 each, so our butter got a pretty shape. Other years, it just gets set into a little bowl and passed around the table.
Somehow, our homemade butter tastes just a little better than all of the butter that we have the rest of the year. And for that, we are thankful.
Feast is a celebration of traditional family recipes, but re-imagined in low carb,carb smart, sugar free, and gluten free ways. Every recipe has a gorgeous full color photo, but I really wanted the book to be beautiful AND practical. SoI give make ahead tips, and even tips on maximizing your fridge space for the holiday gatherings.I’m sharing this recipe from my first book,
Feast. It’s in the pre-publishing stage, but you can sign up here, and I’ll alert you when it’s published!
While this homemade butter recipe is admittedly one of the simpler recipes in the book, it’s endearing and holds a special place in our family traditions.
Homemade Butter Recipe
Homemade butter is one of our favorite little traditions every Thanksgiving, but it's such an easy project that it can be done any time of year! I like how it reconnects my kids to a time when people worked hard to produce their daily food.
Author: Gwen
Serves: 3 ounces
Ingredients
- 1 cup heavy cream—also known as heavy whipping cream
- pinch of salt
Special Equipment
- 2-cup or larger glass jar with tight-fitting, leak-proof lid—we use a pint-sized canning jar
- Small mold, optional
Instructions
- Add cream and salt into small jar and seal tightly.
- Shake, shake, shake…and keep shaking.
- Your cream will go through stages, starting with light whipped, into a very heavy, thick whipped cream. Then suddenly you'll hear liquid start to slosh around in the jar and you'll know it's done.
- Pour off buttermilk- you can discard it or save it to use in small amounts to add flavor to Ranch dressing. Over the sink, drop the ball of butter into a paper towel. Gently dry it off, squeezing off any extra buttermilk that may be trapped inside.
- Serve immediately in a small bowl, or un-mold onto a dish for pretty display as directed below.
- If using a mold, place butter inside and tap the mold firmly on the countertop to release any air bubbles. Chill until ready to serve. To un-mold, run outside of mold under very hot water for a second or two, and tap out onto a serving dish. Smooth any imperfections with a butter knife and serve.
Notes
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