Homemade Cultured Butter

The directions look long, but they are really easy and it only takes a short time to process the butter once the cream has been cultured for 12 hours. Hint: if you are not ready to make the butter at the end of 12 hours, just refrigerate it until you are ready.

Pour cream and buttermilk in a bowl. Cover with plastic and allow to sit in a warm place for 12 hours. When the cream mixture is very thick (about like sour cream), cool to 60 degrees. Pour half of the mixture in a food processor and turn the processor on. The cream will go through two stages: soft peak whipped, stiff peak whipped, and will suddenly separate into globs of butter and buttermilk.

Press all of the buttermilk out into a measuring cup and place butter into a bowl. Add about a cup of ice cold water to the butter and press the rest of the buttermilk out discard water; repeat two more times.

Repeat with remaining cream mixture.

When the butter is washed, add salt and mix up well. Divide butter into approximately 4-ounce portions, package in plastic wrap, and refrigerate or freeze.

You will also have about 2 cups of buttermilk. Save for other yummy dishes. Buttermilk also freezes well.