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Dessert

Making Butter

Butter made by churning cream and working it with salt, beeswax, and clean pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Making Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Churn and work

  1. Churn cream before its quality is impaired, at a temperature of 55°F to 65°F.

  2. Keep milk at a temperature between 45°F to 55°F while cream separates.

  3. Salt and work the butter immediately after churning.

  4. Blend the best quality salt into the butter during the first working.

  5. Extract all buttermilk using a butter ladle.

  6. Ensure cleanliness throughout the process.

Rest and pack

  1. Work the butter again the next day without using cold water.

  2. Repeat working the butter after 24 hours to ensure salt is dissolved and liquid is extracted.

  3. Pack the butter in stone jars or wooden tubs to exclude air.

  4. Pack the butter tightly in tubs lined with bags saturated with beeswax.

  5. Cover the packed butter with clean pickle.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter from churned cream
Forms the main body of the dish, which is worked to remove buttermilk and set its texture.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the butter and helps preserve it when dissolved and worked in evenly.

The step that matters

Working the butter after churning. Residual buttermilk left in the butter can spoil it and make it sour, so it must be thoroughly extracted. Repeated working after 24 hours lets the salt dissolve fully and pushes out remaining liquid.

“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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