Skim cream from milk. To skim the cream, wait until milk is chilled. The cream will rise to the top of the jar. Skim it off with a ladle into another glass jar. Technically you are left with whole milk after skimming this cream. Most jars of raw milk have a cream line about one or two inches on top of the milk--we happen to have a high cream producing cow.

Allow cream to reach room temperature. If the cream is not room temperature, it will take longer for the milk solids to separate from the butterfat. Typically, I set the jar out at breakfast and make butter while cooking lunch. If you leave the cream too long, you'll just have cultured butter! Cultured butter is a natural souring process from leaving the cream sit out overnight, leaving you will a tangier product. If your cream gets too warm, the butter may to be too soft to squeeze. Just chill it back down again!

For the next step, pour cream into blender, bowl for hand mixer or stand mixer. If you use a stand mixer consider covering the mixer with a towel. If you forget to shut off the mixer when the butterfat breaks, it will make a mess. The blender with a tight-fitting lid is really the best option because you can use a low speed, and not make a huge mess if you forget to shut off the blender.

Turn the appliance on low. From room temperature, it is about 3 minutes on average before the fat globules separate from the buttermilk. The two images (in blog post) show whipped cream, then running it 1 minute longer until it is butter. If you are needing to run your blender for longer than 4 minutes, check the temperature of your cream.

Drain the buttermilk and use your hands or a wooden spoon to squeeze the butter and remove the rest of the buttermilk. Continue to add cold running water to your bowl and squeezing the buttermilk from the butter. The buttermilk will cause the butter to spoil faster so you are aiming to have all the buttermilk removed. Add about 1 tsp of salt (unless you want unsalted butter). Salt helps remove buttermilk.

Store butter in a way that you will be likely to use it. We pack ours in 16 oz yogurt containers we've reused, but parchment paper allows you to make them more like a traditional stick of butter. The resulting buttermilk from making the butter can be used to make pancakes, waffles, muffins or to soak chicken.