Baby Food Jar Projects: Homemade Butter

Making your own butter may seem like a crazy thing to do, but it's actually quite easy, very delicious, and a good way to use cream that might otherwise go bad. I made mine with sea salt and packaged it in a baby food jar; I would bring this to a dinner party as an alternative to a bottle of wine.

Learn how to make butter after the jump...
1.  Pour any amount of cream into your mixer with the whisk attachment:

2. Turn it on and watch as the cream goes through these stages.  In a couple minutes it thickens into whip cream:

 In a few minutes it gets sort of globby:

3.  Very soon after that it starts to separate.  The liquid released is the buttermilk.  At this point you want to pour the liquid out.  You can save this but it isn't sour so don't use it to replace buttermilk in recipes (you can use it to replace whole milk though):

Mix it a minute longer and it will thicken more and release more liquid, which you should also pour out:

4. Now take your butter and put it in a bowl of cold water and knead it.  You are rinsing off the buttermilk so your butter will last longer.  Your hands will be all buttery slimy, like a treat for your skin:

5.  Pour the water out and admire your butter.  If you want to you can (like me) put it back in the mixer with some sea salt or herbs or whatever you like and whip it to a fluffier consistency.

6. Package it up cute.  I put some in a baby food jar, and wrapped some in wax paper and tied with bows.  Add a cute label and you're done: