Butter is an essential ingredient in many dishes. From baked goods and desserts to savory dinners and breakfast, butter is found in countless foods. It is essential to keep butter stocked in your fridge. Although butter is not expensive, since it something so vital to a kitchen, you may wonder if is it cheaper to make your own butter.
Making butter is not a difficult task. The only required ingredient to make butter is cream, either heavy or whipping cream. You can then whip the cream either by hand, in a stand mixer or in a blender. After a few minutes, you will get whipped cream rather than butter. At this point you must continue whipping the cream until the fat begins to separate in your cream. Once all the fat is separated, you will be left with butter and buttermilk. In its simplest and rawest form, that is all that is required to make butter. To achieve the same kind of butter as the store bought stuff, you will have to perform a few extra steps.
To fully realize your butter, you will need to filter the buttermilk from your butter even further. This is done first by straining the buttermilk from the butter. Then you must take the butter and place in a bowl of very cold water. From there, you must knead the butter to squeeze the buttermilk from it, changing the water when it gets too murky. Once the water is clear after kneading, the butter has not been fully revealed of all the buttermilk. Your butter can now be salted and packaged for your use. But is this process cheaper than buying butter from the store?
One quart of cream will yield about 2 sticks of butter of butter which is about half a pound of butter or half of a normal package. One pound of butter costs on average of about $3 USD, while two quarts of heavy cream costs about $3.50 USD each. Already, the upfront costs of making your butter is more expensive than buying it store bought. This also does not include the costs of the equipment required for making your own butter. For efficiency, a blender is the best tool for whipping the cream into butter due to the variable speeds and lid to help keep everything in place. Additionally you will need some sort of cheese cloth to help strain and dry the butter during the final separation of the buttermilk. Finally, to make your own butter you will need a way to store the butter, whether that be some parchment paper or a plastic container.
Is it cheaper to make your own butter? Unfortunately it is not. While making your own butter can be a cool way to add some extra personal touches to your cooking and even help control any additives that might find their way into store bought butter, it is certainly not cheaper to make your own butter.