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Dessert

Butter

This recipe describes making butter from milk, including salting and churning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Ensure cows have clean water and quarters.

  2. Scald all milk vessels daily.

  3. Strain milk and store in a dedicated cool room.

  4. Let milk stand for 24 to 36 hours before skimming.

Make the butter

  1. Chill cream to 62°F (16°C) before churning.

  2. Churn the cream and work out as much milk as possible.

  3. Add 1 ounce of salt for every pound of butter.

  4. Set the butter in a cool place for a few hours, then work and roll it.

  5. Avoid sliding motions with the paddle to maintain texture.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Its fat separates from the liquid during churning and clumps into the butter.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the butter and adds flavour to the finished butter.

The step that matters

Chill cream to 62°F (16°C) before churning. At this temperature the cream's fat is firm enough to clump into butter grains but soft enough to stay intact. Cream that is too warm churns slowly and turns greasy, while cream that is too cold resists clumping and churns unevenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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