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French Butter

How to make French Butter
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There are a few things in life, after experiencing something for the first time, that made me feel like I was missing out all this time. French Butter is on the top of this list. I love butter, I love cooking and baking with butter, I love eating butter and the more the merrier. I was always intrigued by French Butter but didn’t love the fact that it’s time consuming and messy to make. But I had to try. Honestly, the effort level wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. The actual amount of work involved is easy and simple. The hardest part was just waiting for the next step, as it can take up to 2 days from start to finish. But it truly is so easy and absolutely worth it. Make this. You won’t regret it.

Ingredients

Units Scale
  • 2 cups of heavy cream (1 pint)
  • 1.5 tablespoons of yogurt (I use Fage 5%)
  • 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Instructions

  1. In a lidded container, whisk the heavy cream and yogurt together. Cover the container with the lid (or cover with saran wrap if not using a lidded container).Let the mixture sit at room temperature, between 70 to 75 degrees F (21 to 24 C) for at least 24 hours and up to 48 hours.
  2. Check the mixture after 24 hours to see if it has thickened. Look for a thin yogurt consistency (not the thick greek kind) and should smell fresh and tangy.
  3. After the cream mixture has thickened, place the bowl in the fridge to chill for 1 to 2 hours. This will help with the whipping process.
  4. Transfer the chilled cream to the bowl of your stand mixture with the whisk attachment. Mix on medium speed and immediately cover the bowl with a towel and clip the towel (with something like potato chip clips or binder clips) so the towel is very snug around the bowl. You may start to hear splashing in the bowl after 7 or 8 minutes. This is when the whipped cream starts separating into curds from the buttermilk. Continue to mix for about 3 to 4 more minutes and you will hear lots of splashing, for a total mixing time of about 12 minutes.
  5. While the cream is mixing, prepare 3 large bowls of ice water.
  6. Turn off the mixer and check your cream mixture. All the butter should be clinging to the whisk, with no separate curds remaining. If there are still curds not attached to the whisk, continue to whisk for another minute or until there are no curds left swimming in the buttermilk.
  7. Lift the whisk up off the buttermilk mixture and remove the bowl. Pour the buttermilk into a separate bowl through a strainer.
  8. Using your hands, thoroughly remove the butter off the whisk as you press the butter into a ball. If there are any curds on the strainer, combine that with your butter ball.
  9. Place the butter ball into the first ice bowl. With the ball submerged, squeeze the butter to remove as much buttermilk as possible. Give it about 3 or 4 good squeezes. Try to keep your fingers close together as you squeeze so that the butter doesn’t seep between your fingers as you squeeze. This will help keep the butter in a ball shape. The water will turn a cloudy white color.
  10. Move the butter into the second bowl and repeat step 9. Then move the butter into the third bowl and repeat step 9 again. This time the water should be clear.
  11. Place the cleaned butter onto a cutting board. With a flat paddle or wooden spoon, flatten the ball by pressing down on it. Use a paper towel to absorb any remaining liquid. While flat, sprinkle salt on your butter. With the paddle, fold the butter onto itself a few times to mix the salt in well. With your paddle or spatula, shape the butter into a rectangle. If not eating the butter immediately, wrap it with parchment paper and keep it in the fridge.

Equipment

Notes

  1. I have had luck making french butter using many types of heavy cream. Ultra-pasteurized heavy cream took a few more hours to thicken but thickened well nonetheless.  It took 40 hours to ferment and 2 cups of cream yielded about 190 grams of butter.
  2. With pasteurized heavy cream, fermenting was done after about 28 hours. 2 cups of cream yielded about 277 grams of butter and 160 grams of buttermilk.
  3. The amount of buttermilk varies due to your mixer speed and how much splashing occurred. Always wrap a towel around your mixing bowl while whipping the cream/butter because there will be lots of splatter! Save the buttermilk for making pancakes or baking bread. Use it instead of water in your bread recipes.
  4. If you don’t have a mixer, you can place the cream mixture in a mason jar and shake it until your arm falls off. Then find a friend and have them shake it too until their arms fall off. Then, between the both of you, decide who should drive to the store and get a mixer. Or just buy French Butter from the store.
  5. I prefer to make this recipe with 2 cups of cream at a time instead of 4 cups (1 quart). With 4 cups of cream, while mixing, the cream and buttermilk will reach the brim of the mixing bowl and make more of a mess. You will also lose more buttermilk during the mixing process. You can double the recipe if you are a masochist.

Find it online: https://moderateposh.com/french-butter/