Who doesn’t love the taste of butter over freshly baked bread or cookies…yumm! I am going to show you how to churn milk cream and make delicious homemade butter right from scratch; it is easy, fun, and practiced by millions across the world.

Ingredients and equipment: 

    • Full fat non-homogenized milk

    • Ice cubes or crushed ice

    • Mechanical churner or plunger

    • Large vessel

    • Steel plate

    • Spatula

    • Salt

1. Boil the milk and chill overnight in a refrigerator. The cream will separate from the milk and form a layer on the top. You can easily scoop up this cream layer with a spoon.

2. Allow the cream to rest at room temperature for some time. Once the cream reaches 50^oF start churning.

3. Using a churner or a plunger vigorously agitate the cream. This mechanical agitation breaks the emulsifying membrane the coats the fat molecules in the cream. As a result the fat-in-water emulsion naturally present in the cream breaks and the fat molecules clump together forming large butter globules. The water separates out as buttermilk.

4. Once the water separates out drain it away using cheesecloth and transfer the soft butter globules to a steel plate. This butter will have lot of water trapped into its structure, which if not removed will spoil the butter. To remove the water add salt and beat the butter with a spatula, the water droplets will separate out. Drain these away.

5. Your butter is now ready. Store it in refrigerator or use immediately.

Notes: In case you do not have a churner or a plunger, place the cream in a jar and shake it vigorously. 

For the fat-in-water emulsion to break the temperature has to be consistently maintained at 50^oF. Adding few ice cubes or crushed ice to the cream during the churning process will help achieve this.

Image Credits: google.com