Bethers wrote:Thanks, Anne. I think buying a mason jar would be better than a mixer. I don't use a lot of butter so I liked the idea of being just small amounts.
You really don't need to buy a Mason jar, especially for your first try (although a single Mason jar should only cost a buck or two). Any large glass jar - like a mayo jar or maybe a spaghetti sauce jar should do the trick. Even a smaller jar, like maybe a jelly or jam jar should work as well for making a very small amount of butter, just have a rubber spatula on hand to get the butter out of the small jar.
You just need to be sure the jar (and the lid) is really clean (yeah, no brainer here, of course) without any residue from the jar's previous contents. Put in a bit of bleach and dishwashing liquid into the jar and - you guessed it! - shake it a bit, then thoroughly rinse.
Probably the most expensive part of this whole deal would be the investment in the heavy cream - a quart of heavy cream is around $5.00 (and up) these days, a pint of heavy cream is around $3.00 (and up). One quart (32 ounces) of heavy cream will yield about 1 pound (16 ounces) of butter, plus about 2 cups of buttermilk.
About half that yield for a pint of heavy cream.
This thread has got me thinking that I would like to try making butter again. Butter made with heavy cream is a lot softer than store-bought butter (and is more of a pale yellow than store bought - a yellow additive is added to store bought), and heavy cream butter does not have any of the additives that store bought butter contains.
Homemade also tastes really good, as I recall.
Anne