Homemade Cultured Butter Recipe - Savory Simple (2024)

FAQs

What makes cultured butter? ›

Cultured butter is made from pasteurized cream that's been exposed to live bacterial cultures (much like the cultures used to make yogurt and cheese). The bacterial cultures jumpstart a fermentation process, which thickens the cream and gives it a tangier, more complex flavor.

They would milk the family's cow and let the milk sit in a shallow pan overnight in order for the cream to rise to the top. The next morning they skim the cream layer with a wooden ladle and leave it out to sour. The cream was them poured into the butter churn (see right).

Cultured butter is made in the European-style with pasteurized cream in a churn just like regular butter, but with one added step. After pasteurization, the cream is fermented by adding a carefully selected bacterial culture.

Butter was first made by placing the cream in a container made from animal material and shaking until the milk has broken down into butter. Later wood, glass, ceramic or metal containers were used. The first butter churns used a wooden container and a plunger to agitate the cream until butter formed.

How Amish Butter Is Made. Amish-style butter is churned cream with a higher dairy fat content than American butter. Instead of being shaped into four-ounce sticks, it typically comes in a one- or two-pound rolled log or wheel, shaped like goat cheese or wax-coated Gouda.

Sometimes referred to as “European-style butter,” cultured butter is treated with live cultures and allowed to ferment before it's churned. This results in butter with a stronger, more lactic flavor. Cultured butter generally has a higher butterfat content (typically 82–85%) than standard American butter (80–82%).

Add a tablespoon or two of buttermilk to your raw cream and allow it to rest at room temperature for 4-6 hours or until it smells fragrant and cultured. Add a tablespoon or two of raw milk kefir to your raw cream and allow it to rest at room temperature for 4-6 hours.

Cultured butters contain probiotics, live microbes with proven health benefits. Standard butters, known as 'sweet butter', do not. Cultured butters taste AMAZING! Most people with lactose intolerance can tolerate butter because it contains only trace amounts of lactose (<0.7g/100g).

Khosrova traces butter's beginning back to ancient Africa, in 8000 B.C., when a herder making a journey with a sheepskin container of milk strapped to the back of one of his sheep found that the warm sheep's milk, jostled in travel, had curdled into something remarkably tasty.

The texture of homemade butter is softer, creamier, and fluffier than regular stick butter. The flavor of the plain butter differs on the type of heavy cream you use.

How did colonial people make butter? ›

After milking, containers of milk were left undisturbed to allow the cream to rise to the top. The farm wife would skim the cream off the top each morning. This cream was used for making butter. A butter churn with a wooden dasher, such as the one displayed to the right of the table, was first used.

Most French butter is cultured (like yogurt) which gives it a more complex, slightly tangy flavor. French (and European) butter also tends to have a higher fat content, which means less water, which means more flavor.

TASTING NOTES

When you first open your butter it will have a tangy and creamy flavour. Over time the culture will develop, which enhances the flavour. Developing cultures will give the butter a cheesier taste and more pungent smell.

Cultured butter differs from regular butter because it is made from fermented cream. Live bacterial cultures are added to heavy cream and left to ferment the cream so that it develops a tangy flavor.

At the beginning, butter making was a rudimentary process. People would fill an animal skin sack with goat's milk, since at this time, cows had not yet been domesticated in most of the world. They would attach the sack to a wooden tripod with rope and rock it back and forth until it eventually formed butter.

Early butter was made by leaving a covered bucket of fresh milk in a cool place like a barn or cellar. The cream naturally separates from the milk rising to the top and is then skimmed off and stored. After a few days enough cream is on hand to make a batch of butter.

Churning, or violently agitating the cream brings its fat globules together and causes them to clump. Cream goes through stages on its way to become butter. First it gets frothy like whipped cream. Then the foam settles into a thick pudding like state.