How to Make Butter {recipe}

In Utah, we have a little holiday on the 24th of July called “Pioneer Day”. We celebrate the anniversary of the Mormon Pioneers arriving in Utah and declaring it to be the place to settle. Our family usually celebrates a lot like we do on the 4th of July, with BBQ’s, fireworks, and a parade with a LOT of horses.

This year, I wanted to teach my kids more about their Pioneer ancestors, and so I wanted to do a pioneer-type activity.
We decided to make butter, and it wasn’t that great of a decision, honestly. {keep reading!}

If you want to go old school {and torture your children, apparently}, all you’ll need to make butter is whipping cream, salt, a jar, and some sort of straining device. Not to be confused with a strangling device, which you may be considering once your kids get shaking {and complaining}.

Start by filling your jar about halfway full with whipping cream. We will salt it when we are done shaking.

 Then shake, shake, shake.

My kids were totally on board with making butter. For about 30 seconds.
Then this happened.

 I heard “are we done yet?” about 45 times. And “I wish we had a butter maker!” and “does someone at the store shake our butter up before we buy it?” and “why didn’t the pioneers just use a machine?”

Yeah, my kids didn’t dig shaking the jar. By the way they were acting, you’d have thought I’d have invented a new torturing technique.
Except the baby. He LOVED it! Maybe that’s because I handed him something that could break into a million pieces and make a giant mess, which I NEVER do. He thought making butter was great! {He looks like he’s shaking it here, but he’s really just throwing the jar around.}

 So…. needless to say, we didn’t actually make our butter the “old fashioned” way. I gave up after a few minutes and threw the cream into the mixer.

 I beat it on medium speed for about 10 to 15 minutes. Until it started to separate.

Remember, you’re not whipping cream here. Well, technically, you ARE whipping cream. But you want it to turn into thick butter, not light and airy dessert topping.

So, use your beater blade, not your whisk. And don’t be tempted to turn the speed up too high. Slow and steady for a LONG time is the trick.

 Once you’ve got your cream turned into butter, you need to strain it in order to separate out the buttermilk.

I used a fine mesh bag in a glass. You could use cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel.

 And strain the heck out of that butter.

 If you want plain, salted butter, add a little salt to taste and you’re done.

 I decided to make mine into garlic butter. Simply because it is the best of all butters.

I just sprinkled it with a little bit of garlic salt. I love Lawry’s garlic salt because it is nice and course, and it has some parsley mixed in, which adds a little bit of color and yumminess.

You could also add raspberries, to make raspberry butter. Or honey, to make honey butter. I think I might add a little Parmesan cheese to mine.

Whatever you add, just mix it in.

I put my garlic butter on some toast and it was DIVINE!!!

 The thing about this butter is that it’s extra sweet. When you say “sweet cream butter”, you can actually mean it!

I would recommend using this butter mainly as a topping. I wouldn’t trust it in baking, although I think it might be amazing to saute some veggies in. YUM!

I’m thinking I might use “making butter” as a punishment, now that I know how terrible it is for my children. I say it all the time, but I can’t imagine being a pioneer, and now I mean it more than ever!

Happy butter making, you pioneer people, you!