Need a fun activity for kids on a rainy day? Try making butter in a jar. They will have a blast shaking the jar, learn a little bit about their food, and hey, you might even get to sit back, relax and slather their creation on a piece of toast.
You’ll Need:
1 Pint mason jar with lid and band {or just a lid of you are using the plastic ones}
8 oz Heavy cream
Directions:
Pour heavy whipping cream into the jar until the jar is about 1/2 full {or 1/2 empty, if that is how you roll}. Place the lid on the jar, screw it down pretty tight to avoid a mess.
Have them shake the jar vigorously {like they might want to go put on workout wear kind of vigorous}. The cream will thicken and begin to clump together. Continue to shake until the cream is mostly solid.
Then, open up the jar and strain off any liquid {you can save the liquid, that’s pure buttermilk baby!} and the remaining mass of goodness is butter.
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Barbara C says
Good Golly Miss Molly.. I better start making my own butter… !!!! It would be a lot easier than buying it from the grocery store.. Just buy the heavy cream.. wowoweee…
Ya know I was born on a farm.. and I remember my Mother having that thingy that made butter.. Then we got Citified.. LOL.. and moved to Southern California… And she never did that again….
Heidi says
Hi Mavis, is the butter naturally yellow?
Kim says
If you plan on keeping the butter more than a day or two, make sure to rinse it well in cool water. I actually pick up the butter in my very clean hands and squeeze it lightly to remove all the liquid and rinse well. It will go rancid if any of the butter liquid is left in the butter.
Teckla says
Yes, good advice! That was always part of our butter making process. We had one of those old fashioned square jars with a wooden paddle that turned. Good times. Ours was always yellow although not always a dark yellow. Maybe that was because we had a jersey cow and used real cream from the cow. Mom usually added a pinch of salt after it was rinsed. The buttermilk was a real treat when chilled, or used in baking.
Lisa says
It works faster if you add a marble to the jar. Then you (especially kids) know it’s almost done when it gets hard to shake.
Ours has never been yellow.
Leanna says
Use the buttermilk in pancakes, slather the pancakes with your homemade butter, and if perchance you make your own maple syrup, drown them in a puddle of that delicious syrup! Enjoy!
HOlly says
I have done this and it took more than 45 minutes – unless you have wonderkids, they will lose interest before you have butter. If you are just looking to make butter yourself, it will go very quickly with a stand or hand mixer. Just keep beating it till it’s the right consistency…
Andrea In SLC says
I learned (the hard way) to let the cream sit out for a couple of hours so it is not cold from the fridge. We use raw whole milk, and I use a turkey baster to take the cream off the top, squirt it into a Mason jar, and let it sit out for a bit. Definitely not room temp but warmer than fridge temp. It goes SO much faster! I shake it and figure I’m getting a “shake weight” workout without the dumb-looking weight! LOL.
Kirk F says
Don’t you have to add a pinch of salt? Butter without any salt at all has no flavor.
Cheryl says
Four sticks of unsalted butter are going for $5.79 here in Denver, so due to that I have seriously been considering making my own. It is not like I go through it that often, but 5.79 is ridiculous!!!
Katherine says
Our butter is always hard as a rock, so we rarely use it. This is a great idea to make just what we need rather than have a pound sit in our refrigerator for months. Plus we get a workout!