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Mason Jar Butter

Hopefully your reading the headnote before diving into this “recipe”, as I always advise. If so, then the loose nature of these ingredients will make sense. I’m not going to put rules on how much butter you can, or cannot, make. That’s up to you. A heads up that the more you make, the longer you’ll have to shake, so for large volumes of butter you might want to make this food processor version. If you’re searching for a marble amongst your kids’ playthings, as I did, then don’t forget to wash it nice and good! That will seem like a “duh” moment to many of you, but I just had to say it. You can also do this without a marble, just expect it to take longer to make your butter. The marble adds friction, speeding up the process a bit. Whatever size jar you use, make sure it can hold triple the amount of liquid you intend to add—you need room to be able to shake the cream thoroughly. So, for example, if you want to make butter from a ½ cup of cream, them you should use a 1 quart (4 cup / 1 litre) mason jar.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients
  

  • Heavy cream
  • Clean marble
  • Clean glass mason jar

Instructions
 

  • Add the cream and marble to your mason jar. Cover the jar tightly with a lid.
  • Shake vigorously, the time depending on how much butter you’re making. For a ½ cup of cream, it took me about 7 to 8 minutes of shaking.
  • The liquid will stiffen into whipped cream rather quickly, and then it’ll seem like you’re at a standstill. Keep shaking.
  • A few minutes later the cream will break, and look a bit like a slurry with bits of solids and liquid. That’s the butter forming. Keep shaking until it forms one larger solid chunk of butter.
  • Set a sieve over a bowl. Pour the butter into the sieve. Gently press the butter, just enough to extract any remaining liquid, but not so hard that you start pressing bits of butter through the sieve. Save the buttermilk or drinking (this buttermilk shake cocktail from 101 Cookbooks would be a great use). Salt the butter, if you like, to taste. Store, covered, in the fridge, and use within 5 days.