How to Make Homemade Butter With a Kitchen Mixer
Is there anything like fresh, homemade butter? If you’ve got a kitchen mixer, you’re in luck – we’ve got a killer recipe, and you can make an amazing batch.
Forget that store-bought stuff. There’s nothing like the taste of fresh homemade butter made from scratch.
As cool as they are, you don’t even need a butter churn to whip up your own country fresh butter right at home. All you need is your trusty kitchen mixer and just one simple ingredient (we’ll tell you what that is in just a minute).
Thinking of making your own homemade butter for that next dinner party or family meal?
Keep reading because we’re spilling our favorite tips and tricks for creating perfectly churned butter from your kitchen mixer.
Choose Your Cream Wisely
Butter is made from just one simple ingredient—cream.
Both heavy cream or “heavy whipping” cream will work just fine. But you don’t want to choose just any brand of cream for a special occasion. You want it to taste as fresh and authentic as possible, so don’t be afraid to splurge on the good stuff.
Plus, you can find great deals on high-quality cream with very little additives at your local grocery store, organic foods market, or even online.
Some of our favorite brands are:
- Clover
- Horizon
- Kalona
- Trader Joes Organic
- Whole Foods 365
- Straus Family Creamery
This is also a great excuse to visit and support your own local creamery too!
Grab Your Kitchen Mixer: Tips For Choosing A Mixer For Butter-Making
Your next step is to grab that kitchen mixer from your cabinet. Specifically, a stand mixer.
Handheld mixers are great to have in your kitchen, but they’re not the best choice for making butter.
A stand kitchen mixer is much heavier so it stays put on the kitchen counter during vigorous blending and mixing. Plus, our favorite kitchen stand mixer comes with a large steel bowl that’s perfect for mixing and keeping your butter cold.
To make sure you have the right appliance for butter making, make sure your stand mixer has the following working features:
- At least two working beaters that you can easily remove and replace.
- Multiple adjustable mixing speeds.
- An attached mixing bowl that locks in place but can be easily removed and is preferably steel.
- Working motor.
- Can hold up to 4 to 5 quarts at least.
If you don’t currently have a kitchen mixer or are looking to upgrade for your butter making, these are five of our favorite stand mixers for making butter:
- KitchenAid Artisan tilt head stand mixer
- Hamilton Beach 6-speed Stainless Steel mixer
- KitchenAid Classic Stand Mixer
- KitchenAid Professional 5
- KitchenAid Professional 6
You can read in-depth reviews of these top butter-making stand mixers right here.
Making Your Butter
Now that you have your cream and kitchen mixer ready, you can start making your own homemade butter.
We want to make sure you get your butter just right, so make sure to save and follow these directions:
First, remove your cream from the refrigerator and let it sit on your kitchen counter for a little while, just enough for it to start naturally separating. As you make your butter, your mixture will separate into butter fat and buttermilk anyway. This part is definitely optional, but some chefs swear by it.
Next, you want to pour all your cream into the large steel mixing bowl that’s attached to your kitchen mixer. If you’re using a Kitchenaid Tilt kitchen mixer, you can easily tilt your mixer up to add your cream without having to attach the mixing bowl.
Start blending your cream on your mixer’s lowest setting. This may be “1” or “slow” depending on the brand.
We recommend starting with a whisk-style beater first, then switching to a paddle-style beater as your butter thickens.
As you churn your cream, you want to gradually increase your mixer setting from slow, then medium, then eventually, it’s most powerful setting.
As you mix and gradually increase your speed, you’ll notice your butter getting thicker and thicker. We recommend sneaking in a few tastes to make sure your butter’s texture and taste is coming along just right.
While you don’t have to add salt to your butter, it doesn’t hurt to add a sprinkle or two for taste and increase preservation.
Your butter should start separating within the first few minutes of mixing. You know your butter is done when it’s completely separated from the buttermilk collected at the bottom of your bowl.
Rinse Your Butter
This part is so important.
The butter making process isn’t over once you see all that delicious butter in your mixing bowl. Your next step is to rinse out your freshly made butter with water.
First, you need to pour out that yummy leftover buttermilk into a glass mason jar or any other airtight container. You can use this buttermilk later to make fluffy pancakes, salad dressing, biscuits, and other home cooked foods.
While your butter is still in the bowl, pour one to two cups of ice cold water over your butter then mix again for just under a minute on slow to medium speeds. This is how you get out any leftover buttermilk out of your butter. You may also want to press and kneed your butter to squeeze out any extra liquid as well.
Once all the buttermilk is squeezed out from your solid butter, you can throw out that excess watery buttermilk—you already saved the good stuff!
You may want to take this time to add a little sea salt or other extra seasonings if you want to make seasoned butter for steak or seafood. Otherwise, you don’t have to add a thing. Simple unsalted butter tastes great on its own.
An additional resource to check out homemade butter – it isn’t just us doing this!
How To Keep Your Butter Fresh
To store, we recommend putting your butter into an airtight container. This should keep it fresh for at least a couple of months at best.
You can also roll your butter into a few balls and wrap them up in plastic wrap.
And don’t forget to always refrigerate your butter to make it last longer.
We love this super easy butter recipe and hope you do too!
Always have a good standing kitchen mixer ready, quality cream, and these directions on-hand the next time you attempt butter-making at home.
