Making flavored butter at home isn’t something you would typically find me striving to do. Hell, making any food at home isn’t something I strive to do. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, butter was one of those items that was hit or miss at the grocery store. Sold out one day, a few sticks in stock the next. Butter wasn’t as hard to find as toilet paper and hand sanitizer, but finding it wasn’t a sure bet either.
by Derrick James, SHTFblog founder and blogger at Prepper Press
Butter Sold Out Everywhere
With the pandemic, and subsequent closure of so many restaurants, suddenly everyone was cooking at home. Flour was sold out. Sugar was sold out. Butter was sold out.
“No buddah!?” I said to myself, angrily. That anger was in part aimed at myself. As a prepper, I knew I needed a backup plan to all things. Being out of butter was partly my own fault. I wouldn’t let this happen again!
Enter the Kilner Butter Churner.
What’s even more rare than finding me making something in the kitchen is actually buying something for the kitchen. I know everyone has their own must-have prepper cooking products, but never would I have thought that a butter churner would be one – until I needed one!
The Amazon reviews on this churner were strong, and the churner didn’t disappoint. Construction seemed solid. All it would take to make fresh butter was this churner, some heavy cream, and a few minutes of cranking.
Of course, when everyone rushes the grocery store in a panic and buys up all of the butter, it’s entirely possible that heavy cream will be sold out as well – but not as likely as butter itself.
Why a Butter Churner?
Why did I splurge for a butter churner when I could just wait until butter is back in stock? A few reasons.
For starters, nothing is going to stand in the way of my and my buddah. And let’s face it, when there is no butter available, most people don’t then think, “Oh, I’ll just go get some heavy cream and make my own.”
Second, being a prepper, I know that two is one and one is none; i.e. redundancy is the key to preparedness. This was proven as fact before my butter churner. When the butter was out (one) I had none. But with the churner, I now had another option (butter or heavy cream = 2). Thus, my “two” became “one” – butter!
Third, there was another added benefit to owning a butter churner – I could make flavored butter! Salted butter? No problem. Garlic butter? You bet. Cinnamon and honey butter – that’s what I made!
Making Flavored Butter from a Churner
Making flavored butter is my kind of recipe – easy! The ingredients come after the butter, however, and making that butter was as easy as setting the cream out for a few hours to reach room temperature.
I poured a full carton of heavy cream into the jar and began cranking. The directions indicated I could have butter after ten minutes of cranking. That sounded like it would be an eternity of spinning the handle, but it went surprisingly fast, only… no butter! Nothing seemed to be happening. Then I checked the directions again, felt the jar, and yep – it was cool to the touch. The cream had not reached room temperature.
I set the jar back down and walked away for probably another thirty minutes or so. Then when I came back it felt room temperature. I started cranking again and voila! I had butter in probably seven minutes of cranking.
What happens here is the cream begins to thicken, then it becomes very thick and slightly harder to turn, and just a short bit later, the milk separates from the butter. This milk is like skim milk, only it’s buttermilk, so you are not losing any product there so long as you can make use of it.
Next, you dump the milk out, then squeeze and mash the butter extracting whatever remaining milk that you can. You pour cold water over the butter, then mash some more. Eventually you’ve extracted as much milk as you can and you’re now either done (if you want plain unsalted butter), or you mash in your ingredients for flavored butter.
Making Cinnamon and Honey Butter
I wanted butter for toast, so I added a pinch of sea salt, a heavy pinch of ground cinnamon, and a few ounces of honey.
I mixed and mashed some more until all of the ingredients were thoroughly mixed in. Then a pushed it into a glass container and it was ready for the fridge.
Homemade Butter Taste Test
The next morning I had toast with homemade cinnamon and honey butter! It was good. I wasn’t astounded, but it did taste like toast with butter, cinnamon, and sugar, so the fact that it seemed comparable to store-bought butter seemed like a win to me. My mission of having butter redundancy was a success, and really, making it was not a big deal.
Have you made your own butter or had experience with the Kilner Butter Churner? Alternatively, how do you account for butter in your preparedness plans? Let me know in the comments section.
1 comment
My best friend and I made butter a few years ago. Didn’t use a churn but my kitchen aid mixer and a quart of heavy cream. Store bought butter can’t compare to the yumminess of real homemade butter!