I learned how to make butter when I was a kid growing up with my grandparents. My grandmother taught me how to make butter in a jar and then I went to North Dakota, my Aunt Hilda also taught me how to make bottle butter. (She also showed me real churn butter but that is for another post)It’s really very simple… heavy cream… a little salt and a little bit of elbow grease.

First you pour a couple cups of heavy cream into a container… it could be a jar or a cup or some kind of a mixing container… whatever is comfortable for you. It doesn’t have to be measured or anything.  I never really measure. I just pour stuff in and like my grandma used to say…”it turns out pretty good by guess and by golly…”

Add salt to taste and stir cream until it separates. Once you can see a kind of Milky, watery substance separating from the fat that ultimately becomes the butter…stir for a little bit longer. It will get harder to stir and then it will get very grainy.

You can use cheese cloth for this next part or you can do it like both my grandma and Aunt Hilda did and just pick it up in your hand and squeeze the liquid out between your fingers. It will be messy…but oh so fun! Just keep squeezing until all the liquid runs out and you have a little ball of butter left in your hand. Do this in small handfuls until the entire batch has been squeezed into little balls of butter. Voila! you are done. Now…go bake bread! Next post!

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