Last fall, I enjoyed a memorable meal at Eleven Madison Park. I would be hard pressed to tell you what I had for breakfast, but I can remember every last detail of that meal, right down to the butter. In part, that may have been because the server made a ceremony of presenting it and pointing out that it was unsalted butter from Vermont. I can't deny that it was good. In fact, it was very, very good. But I would have been more impressed if it had been made in-house.
I distinctly remember wondering, as I ate the olive-studded baguette spread with the very, very good butter, why restaurants aren't making their own butter for table service. It seems a missed opportunity for customization and bragging rights.
Is it cost, time, labor, skill? The cost is on or below par to an artisanal butter and the time and labor are negligible. Making butter is such a basic skill that a five-year-old can produce an excellent product from fresh cream, a jar, and some elbow grease. Anyone who has ever over-whipped cream (raising hand) has unwittingly made butter. What is often viewed as a disaster is, in fact, a small, everyday miracle.
Butter is essentially the fat of the milk. It is an water-in-oil emulsion, composed of 80-82 percent milk fat, 16-17 percent water, and 1-2 percent milk solids. Transforming milk into butter will take place faster and the the yield will be higher if you start with fresh, pasteurized (preferably raw, but not ultra pasteurized) heavy cream. Agitation, whether in a jar (15 minutes of constant shaking), or in a food processor (30-60 seconds), incorporates air, forms bubbles, then fat globules collect in the bubble walls. At this point, whipped cream–a light, stable foam– is formed. If agitation continues, the friction warms and softens the fat globules to a near-liquid state, causing the walls to rupture and the fat globules to cling together, forming larger and larger masses. Knowing this is not necessary to make butter–the miracle will still happen.
After churning, the buttermilk is drained off. This buttermilk is the real deal–light, tangy, refreshing–and to some, the reward of churning your own butter. Ice water is then added to the fat crystals and they are worked together with a paddle or spatula until they are creamy and homogenized.
Making butter is rewarding to those of us who are thrilled by watching matter transform from one state to another, but anyone would be won over by the flavor of freshly-formed, sweet butter. In her new book "Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through The Ages", culinary historian Anne Mendelson describes the taste of homemade butter as " the taste of cream to the nth power, cream newly translated to some rarefied spiritual afterlife." Chemically, the flavor of butter is comprised of over 120 different aroma compounds that include: fatty acids, lactones, methyl ketones, diacetyl, and dimethyl sulfide.
Aside from the inherent flavors in butter, fat has long been recognized as a flavor carrier; a vehicle to deliver whatever flavors and aromas that are put in contact with it. This is why butter is wrapped and isolated in its own compartment in storage. But this capacity to absorb can be seen as an opportunity to infuse flavor. Truffles are often buried in porous foods such as rice or eggs to infuse them with their aroma–why not store them with butter? Or other aromatics: citrus, herbs, porcini, cheese, coffee, chocolate, vanilla beans? Can garlic butter be made more efficiently by storing cut garlic cloves in a closed container with butter? Similarly, a compound butter is made by blending a flavorful or aromatic ingredient into finished butter, but this can sometimes interrupt the texture. What if flavor was introduced into the cream before churning it into butter? The infusion would have to take place at a temperature below pasteurization (185F/85C in the US) or through cold vacuum infusion. One final interesting developement with fat is that it is being studied as the sixth taste, although the actual receptors are still undiscovered.
I've made butter many times (some times, on purpose), but this is my first attempt at cultured butter, which is simply cream that has been soured (with buttermilk) and allowed to ferment or "ripen" at room temperature prior to ageing in the refrigerator. As with all fermentation, bacterial action develops acids and aroma compounds. One in particular, diacetyl, when superimposed with the compounds already present in fresh butter creates a noticeably fuller flavor that carries over into the buttermilk, which is the thickest, richest, and most flavorful that I have ever tasted. If you can resist drinking it all or turning it into amazing biscuits, it can be frozen to ripen the next batch of cultured butter.
ripening & ageing
churning
washing & creaming
Recipe: Cultured butter
Playing with Fire and Water 
I love your creations, but this is by far the best post you’ve ever written. Excellent explanations, fun facts, and something everyone can do easily and should do at least once.
I remember a Daniel Patterson article about butter where he said something like “I was making a mushroom consomme gelee, and I realized that while I could do all these high technical things, I’d never made butter.” It’s important to go back to basics.
Thanks so much for this post.
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thanks. and you’re welcome.
you’re right–it is important–the basics are the cogs of creativity and need to be greased every now and then
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Great, as always.
Only one question: butter is noy an oil in water emulsion, but a water in oil one (one of the few emulsions of this type). In fact, churning allows the oil in water emulsion present in milk to reverse into this water in oil emulsion which is butter. You can make a water in oil emulsion by adding the water phase onto the oil while mixing (for example a reverse mayonnaise, adding the egg slowly onto the oil). The funny question is that this type of mayonnaise is too oily in the mouth (with the same amount of oil as a normal mayonnaise) just because of the physical distribution of the oil.
Cheers
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Funny… we literally just asked ourselves a few days ago, “why don’t restaurants make their own butter?” Your step by step is motivating.
I’m also fascinated by the process… that cream can flip from an oil in water emulsion to a water in oil emulsion just by moving it. What other mixture can do this?
The cold infusion is interesting as well. Using milk or cream or other dairy, we successully have infused many flaovors by simply letting it sit for 24 hours refrigerated.
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Outstanding post! I have been wondering not only why don’t restaurants make their own butter, but why isn’t there more artisanal butter production coming from artisanal dairies?
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I guess your thickened buttermilk-cream mix is nothing else then housemade “creme fraiche”. at least thats what i am making once in a while….so thanks for going a step further.
greetz from germany,
ruby
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Ogres–Yes, of course! Thanks for calling that out and for the interesting information about mayonnaise.
Chad–see Ogres comment. good observation as well.
John– maybe it’s time for a butter revolution!
Ruby–yes it is. In fact, the butternilk tastes just like defatted cream fraiche. divine.
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We infused thai tea into cream and then made butter from it. The result was spectacular, and the thai tea flavored buttermilk was delicious with just a hint of sugar.
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Thanks for the great article. I have never made my own butter but am going to try it soon!
Maybe one of the reasons there aren’t many artisan dairies making butter, is because they don’t have the facilities. Even though its not hard to make, it is still expensive to do it.
I was talking to one of my local dairy farmers last weekend, and he wants to start making some of his cream into butter, but has to build the facility first.
To make a lot of good butter at a restaurant would mean that you would have to get a good reliable source of high quality milk, which is not that cheap. There is no seperate charge for butter in the US, so I would imagine only the finest of restaurants would think about making it.
I have a feeling though, that we are going to be seeing more good local butters in the near future.
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Ciao!
I´m completely blown away by your wonderful site and the recipes, research, ideas, pictures, forms, colors.
I can´t believe I haven´t found it before!
Tonite I´ll have to dedicate a couple of hours to reading through the site and looking at the beautiful pictures.
Have a nice day!
/ john
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I think the culturing process is what makes a good great, based on my limited experience with making butter. Have you done much experimenting around this? Any results that tasted better than others?
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This was my first attempt at cultured butter. I’m currently playing with the idea of ripening the cream with wine — thinking that the tartaric acid would produce something similar to mascarpone, but with more complexity.
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try making butter with raw milk, unbelievable…it’s not ‘cultured’ per se, as it has the natural micro organisms present to turn into butter by just whipping it or putting it in the robot coup. disclaimer: of course this is only for your household consumption!
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Using buttermilk rather than double cream, the butter will probably stay fresh for longer due to the lactic acid bacteria and lowered pH. This was probably the reason why butter was primarily made from buttermilk in old days (at least here in Scandinavia).
Chad: chocolate is also an emulsion system that might be played around with, of course. A fascinating oil-water-oil 3-phase emulsion is explained by Erin S. here: http://www.fooducation.org/2009/02/chocolate-part-1-why-it-seizes-with.html“ (see Erin’s comment, not the blogpost itself).
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Last week I made uncultured butter, turned out great.
This time I tried the cultured route. I used the same cream as before (500ml) and added 3 tbsp of nice organic yogurt (3%, active cultures).
I left the mixture out for about 20 hours or so, and it was definatily tangy, but not super thick.
I tried to churn it as I did before, but it just wouldn’t thicken – Even after 25 mins. Last time it happened fairly quickly.
Any ideas what might have gone wrong?
Thanks.
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Did you thoroughly chill it before churning?
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Is it possible to reconstitute butter into “cream” by either beating buttermilk into melted butter or vice versa? I cannot get raw cream here in London and prefer the flavour of cultured butter (such as Lurpak) but want to make it from the milk of grass fed cows – which is only easily/inexpensively available in the form of Kerrygold butter. Hoping that the chemists among you may be able to help!
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