What's Bread Without a Little Butter?

Nothing beats homemade bread, well, maybe homemade bread with homemade butter. I love the creaminess of the butter when it's freshly made, and I have to admit that I over salt it a bit to tang it up a bit.

We start with heavy whipping cream. I leave it out on the counter to come to room temperature. You can leave it out a little longer than that even, around 8 hours. I feel like it gives the butter a little something extra, warms the flavor a bit. The room temperature cream helps the butter glob-duals form faster.

Then I put it in a mason jar. (Side note, I'm in love with mason jars. Someday I will write a post about my love affair with mason jars.) And shake, and shake, and shake, and then find some other sorry sap that you can talk into shaking, tell them that butter is lots of fun to make and all that jazz. And then after they shake for a while they'll probably get bored and give you the jar back. And you'll continue to shake. All of a sudden the butter will go from a jushing sound to a plopping sound. (I promise it will happen...keep shaking) Oh, you can also take some of the cream out of the jar to allow for more movement back and forth.

Once you get to the plopping stage, (technical terms here) unscrew the lid and pour the contents out into a bowl. You will now have butter and butter milk. Keep the butter milk and make it into biscuits, ranch dressing, what ever your heart's desire.

I now rinse the butter several time by adding cold water, smushing it down with a spoon a few times, and pouring it out. Do this until the water runs fairly clear.

Then add salt if you desire to taste. I do desire, and I usually add more than the store bought. Cold butter will taste saltier than room temp, so keep that in mind. Lather lots on homemade bread. Store in refrigerator.

Check out these beautiful butter molds from Lehmanns to make your homemade butter even prettier. Lehmanns is a great homesteading supply website.