DIY Raw Artisanal Butter

Step 1: Acquire Raw cow's milk from a local farm. You can also use your own cow of course, but we don't have the resources for a cow at this point. We buy our milk at Mad Radish CSA in Chesterfield, NH (http://madradishcsa.com/). It is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in Vermont. If you can not find raw milk anywhere, you can skip this step and buy heavy cream from the grocery store. I much prefer supporting a local farm and the taste of raw cows milk. 

When using raw cows milk, if you let it sit overnight the cream will rise to the top. There will be a clear line showing where the cream is and where the milk is. Here we have already separated the cream from one of the bottles of milk.

You will need to separate the cream. This is what you will turn into butter. To separate the cream from the milk, we use a small ladle and scoop it off the top. Almost two cups of cream!

Step 2: Acquire a jar with a twist on lid. This will be your high tech butter making machine. You can find one just about anywhere for much less than the cost of a butter churn. Pour the cream into the container and shut the lid very tightly.

Step 3: Shake like crazy! I had to invest in some shaking help. After 7 minutes of shaking, my arms felt like they were going to die. My sister and son took over for a bit until I could feel my arms again. It took 12 minutes total to turn into butter. TIP: Let the cream come to room tempature before you begin. I did not do this step. Also, the MORE the better. I tried with too little cream (1/2 cup) and it took forever and never became butter.

Once you hear sloshing in the container you know it is done. Check out all of this awesome butter!

Step 4: Separate the butter from the buttermilk. Pour the liquid into a separate container. This is buttermilk- set it aside. Place the remaining butter into a bowl. To remove the rest of the buttermilk from the butter, pour water over the butter. Use your hands to gently massage the butter. Pour out the leftover buttermilk/water. Gently massage the butter one more time to get out the very last bits of remaining buttermilk.

Step 5: This is the fun part! Add spices/herbs/salts. You can add any combination you want. In the future I am going to dry herbs from our garden and add them to the butter. We found a little butter making kit that came with a salted option, herb option, and cinnamon sugar option. 

I wanted two flavors so I split the butter in half. The recipe recommended 1 tbs of cinnamon sugar. I halved it but in retrospect it was still way too much. In the future I would stir it in to taste.

Next I used a butter knife to put the butter in a ramekin. I then covered the ramekin with wax paper for storing it in the fridge.

The other half of the butter I made into a salted butter. I added 1/4 tablespoon of salt.

This butter I made into a log like shape and wrapped in wax paper.

Remember that buttermilk? I cleaned out the jar I made the butter in and am using it to store the buttermilk. Tomorrow morning we will use the buttermilk to make some delicious buttermilk pancakes!

Refrigerate everything and eat it within 2 weeks.

Final review: The cinnamon sugar butter had too much cinnamon. I would make my own mixture in the future and use less. The salted butter was delicious. This will definitely be something that we will continue to do in the future and is a great project for any age.