Fresh homemade white butter has its own charm! It is called makhan in Hindi and is made without any additives or preservatives. Making butter at home sounds difficult, but thanks to electronic mixers or food processors, you can whip it up in just 5 minutes! Many North Indian families make butter at home because it tastes better than the butter you can buy at the store. As compared to the regular butter, Homemade white butter is natural, unprocessed, more nutritious, and can be enjoyed with literally anything. My Mom used to make butter in order to make homemade ghee or clarified butter. You can also keep the butter whole for everyday cooking. It keeps well in the refrigerator for 5-7 days and in the freezer for a month or even more! It is delicious served on piping hot parathas or fried stuffed flatbreads of all sorts, like aloo/potato paratha, gobi/cauliflower paratha, mooli/ radish parathas, or paneer/Indian cottage cheese paratha. It is also used liberally when serving the famous combination of makki di roti (corn meal flatbread) with sarson ka saag (mustard greens).
To make this recipe, collect fresh cream or malai daily at home from the top of slow-boiled milk and store this collected cream in freezer. You can use readymade heavy cream too.
Ingredients
For the butter:
- •473 ml (2 cups) fresh malai or heavy cream or heavy whipping cream, with 35% fat and above
Equipment needed:
- •Bowls
- •Stand mixer or electric hand mixer or blender or food processor
- •Mesh strainer
- •Silicone spatula
- •Wooden spoon or spatula
- •Cheesecloth or muslin
- •Kitchen towels
Preparation
- If using frozen cream, on the day of preparation, defrost in microwave or keep on the countertop until it comes to room temperature.
Using a blender, food processor, or a bowl and hand whisk, begin to whip the cream. While whipping, initially the cream will be smooth, then form soft peaks, and later stiff peaks. Finally butter will take its form.
Add 237 ml (1 cup) of cold water and continue until you see buttermilk. The thick butter will separate in the form of lumps of butter floating in the buttermilk. The butter will also stick to the whipping blades, so scrape with a spatula, adding the butter solids to the bowl.
Now add 118 ml (½ cup) or more of ice-cold water all over the butter in the bowl. This will solidify the butter and firm it up.
To rinse the butter, line a mesh strainer with cheesecloth or muslin and place it on top of a bowl. Pour the buttermilk and butter from the bowl into the cheesecloth, scraping all the butter at the sides of the bowl with a spatula and transferring it onto the cheesecloth.
Collect the edges and form a bundle, gently pressing off the extra whey or buttermilk from the butter. Open the cheesecloth and you will see a nice lump of soft homemade white butter with the buttermilk collected in the bottom of the bowl. Use buttermilk as needed in any recipes.
Now place the cheesecloth with the butter on the mesh strainer. Keep the mesh strainer on top of the same bowl in which you whipped the cream. Rinse the butter with ice cold water a few times so that more of the buttermilk is extracted from it.
Gently pour 118 ml (½ cup) cold water all over the butter. Press the butter with a wooden spatula so that more of the buttermilk is removed from it. Repeat, pouring 118 ml (½ cup) cold water all over, pressing the butter to extract the buttermilk. Repeat a third time, pressing again. You will see that the milky white color of water will become more faint. Some people use their hands to rinse the butter and remove the buttermilk. Some find it messy, though that’s the traditional way!
Bring the edges of the cheesecloth together and press gently to extract as much buttermilk from the butter as possible. The more the buttermilk that is removed, the longer will the shelf life of your homemade butter. Remove the butter, place it in an airtight container*, and store it in the refrigerator.
*At this point, as a variation, you could also add salt or ground pepper or your choice of dried herbs to the butter; mix very well.