Butterfingers! (How to Make Homemade Buttter Without a Churn)

To go along with our post RIGHT HERE about the butter bell, I figured it would be good to show how we make the butter to go in it.  First, we skim some cream off the top of the milk and put it in a wide mouth quart jar.  We set it out on the counter for a while so it gets to be room temperature.  I think this is the most important thing.  If the cream is room temperature, it 'breaks' into butter very quickly.  If the cream is cold, it takes a lot longer.

Make sure that the lid is on securely or you will have a mess on your hands.  Then simply shake.  You can hear the thick cream sloshing around in the jar.

All of a sudden, you'll feel things change in the jar as the cream 'breaks' and suddenly instead of cream in your jar, you have butter and buttermilk.  It is as simple as that.

I use a long wooden spoon to press the butter to squeeze the buttermilk out.  As the buttermilk is expressed, I pour it into a half pint jar.  This buttermilk will be used to make pancakes, waffles or biscuits.  You can see everything we used to make butter in the photo below.

Here is a close-up of the fresh, creamy, yellow butter that is ready to be spread on some homemade bread.  Homemade butter!  Doesn't get any fresher than this...

While it may make a bit of a mess, it is worth the trouble.

You can always lick the butter off your fingers.