Simple and easy recipe with video tutorial on how to make butter from raw or pasteurized cream to enjoy the ancestral health benefits of this nutrient-dense traditional food.
Ah, homemade butter. Has there ever been a more perfect food?
To the Traditional Swiss living in the isolated Loetschental valley early in the last century, raw butter made from unpasteurized cream was a sacred food. No pale supermarket butter, but a golden alpine butter made from the rich, beige raw cream of cows grazing on thick grass.
The children raised on this nutrient-dense, raw butter had strong physiques, and wide faces with plenty of room for their teeth. They also had high resistance to disease. There wasn’t a single case of TB in the Loetschental Valley despite this illness raging elsewhere in Switzerland during the early part of the 1900s. At that time, the Swiss villagers still existed on foods grown or sourced themselves in the valley. Only salt was brought in from the outside.
The young men raised on this nutrient-dense traditional diet with plenty of raw, deep yellow butter were so perfect and pleasing in physique, strength, and character that the Vatican favored them over all others in Europe to serve as the Papal Guard.
The Loetschental Swiss knew that it was this nutrient-dense, raw butter that was responsible for their robust health. The indigenous Swiss would put wicks in bowls of the first spring butter and burn it in their Churches!
We now know that this sacred food contained ample amounts of true Vitamin A, D, and K2. When sufficient amounts of these fat-soluble vitamins are present in the diet, they work synergistically to produce a level of health unknown in modern civilization.
The Importance of Raw Butter in the Diet
When I first became knowledgeable on the subject of Traditional Diets, obtaining plenty of raw, grass-fed butter for my family became a primary goal.
The problem was that raw butter was not available anywhere near where I lived. I couldn’t even find raw cream or unpasteurized milk for that matter!
Determined to have this sacred food for my husband and me (I was pregnant at the time) and for my oldest child who was a young toddler, I sourced quarts of frozen, raw grass-fed cream from elsewhere and shipped in 9 or more quarts a month for my family’s use.
With some of that beautiful beige, grass-fed cream, I would make the most tantalizing, golden butter for my family. I continued this habit for many years.
I am fortunate that now I am able to obtain raw, grass-fed butter locally so I rarely have to make my own raw butter anymore. However, I thought it would be helpful to show you how to make this sacred food for yourself in case some of you are in the same predicament that I was many years ago – desperately wanting raw, grass-fed butter but unable to find any!
How to Source Grassfed Cream
The only thing you really need when making butter is quality pastured cream. Don’t use anything else or your butter will turn out white or at best pale yellow. A light-colored butter indicates a low amount of fat-soluble vitamins.
The easiest route is to buy quarts of raw, grass-fed cream from a local farm. If you don’t have a local grass-based dairy farm nearby, you can request your local health food store to stock a pasteurized cream.
Natural by Nature is a good brand as is this pastured A2 cream.
This brand of Devon cream is excellent too and can be mail-ordered to your door.
Be sure to avoid UHT pasteurized cream by Organic Valley as it is too overly processed.
If you can obtain raw, pastured milk but not cream, you could also take the cream off the top of a gallon or two of the milk using a turkey baster and make butter with that cream.
The key is to get creative!
Don’t take no for an answer if you can’t find quality cream where you live. Figure out where to get it whether it be sucked off the top of a few gallons of grass-fed milk or shipped in from another place. A great way to find farms that will mail order cream to you can be found in the Weston A. Price Foundation Shopping Guide.
Can’t Tolerate Butter?
If due to allergy or availability, you are unable to enjoy the benefits of pastured raw butter on a regular basis, it is very important to be sure you’re getting sufficient Vitamin K2 (called the “X-Factor” by Dr. Price) in the diet via a whole food derived K2 supplement (as MK-7, the fermented form). Another dairy-free option to obtain K2 (as MK-4, the animal form) is Australian emu oil.
Both forms of Vitamin K2 synergize with Vitamin A and D obtained in the diet and/or via high vitamin cod liver oil for maximum absorption and effectiveness. The three together are particularly effective at maintaining the health of the teeth and gums.
Homemade Butter
The recipe below details the instructions demonstrated in the video tutorial. You may use either raw or pasteurized cream, preferably from pastured animals.
Note that once you make the butter, you can easily take it one more step to make homemade ghee, which is shelf-stable. Both ghee and raw butter oil are concentrated forms of all the goodness of butter!
How to Make Butter
Recipe for homemade butter using pasteurized or raw cream. Super easy and when sourced from pastured cows, is one of the healthiest foods on the planet.
Ingredients
- 1 quart cream preferably raw and grassfed
- 1 large glass bowl
- 1 hand mixer
Instructions
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Pour cream into the bowl and let come to room temperature.
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Turn on hand mixer on medium speed and mix until the cream turns into butter. You will know this because suddenly, the butter will separate from the buttermilk in the bowl and change color to yellow. This takes about 3 minutes.
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Add 2 cups ice cold water and remix for a few seconds. Pour butter mixture into a fine mesh cheesecloth, gather up the ends and squeeze bag to strain out the water mixed with buttermilk. Repeat this rinsing process one or two more times as desired to make sure all the buttermilk is removed for the sweetest tasting butter.
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Scoop the butter into a small container with a lid. Refrigerate.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
If you use slightly soured cream in this recipe instead of fresh cream, you will have cultured butter!
Reference
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Weston A. Price
I’m learning so much from the comments in addition to the blog posts and videos… This is a great community! Thank-you to Sarah and to all her community!
I sent an email to a local WAPF chapter and got a response. Sounds like I can go to a meeting in June and get to know them. In the meantime I have a road trip planned soon… now I’m thinking I ought to see if I can’t incorporate the purchase of a stock of raw cream on the way home. It is not legal for sale in my state. Not sure if it is because of my lack of skills navigating the web or if the info is not online, but now I need to figure out where I could buy a high quality raw cream. The only states I can think of would be South Carolina or Pennsylvania which are not exactly on the way, but maybe I could swing through…. hmm… So then the next thing would be to know a source to go to in South Carolina, or if not there then in Pennsylvania?
I’m already planning on KY, TN, GA, TN, KY and then back home in OH. So swinging into SC wouldn’t be completely out of the question, I don’t think. Hard to budget but I think the health issues are so important. I need to get healthier. And I want my children to be on the right path so they have fewer health problems as adults and so that they can have healthy children themselves someday.
What state do you live in?
Ohio. 🙂
[email protected]
I live in KY, where it is also illegal to buy raw milk. However, there are ways. 🙂 I think I’ve heard of a few places in OH where it’s possible too…
Am I reading correctly that it isn’t worth drinking the milk once you’ve skimmed the cream off? If so, why is that?
Does anyone know if the skimmed milk left over after taking off the cream
can be used to clabber and create homemade whey? The only cream I’ve been
able to source so far is from our milk. I don’t have a farm to spray it on and I’d
hate to waste it.
Yes of course you can do this with the leftover skim milk. It’s great for garden fertilizer too.
Thanks for your reply Sarah. I appreciate your hard work in bringing us all this information!
Hi Sarah, I tried to send you this link via your contact page, but it didn’t work, so as a final resort I’ll post it here. This company also sells KerryGold, by the way, so it’s kind of related to this article, but if you want to move the location, I can see why.
I found this product (liverwurst) today online and thought it could be a great way for people to incorporate grassfed organ meats into their diet. I apologize it you already know about it. Here is the link:
http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Detail.bok?no=821
I know it’s not local for most, and the idea of shipping food is counter to the whole idea of getting to know your farmer, but for people who aren’t going to go find a farmer, this might be a way for them to get some healthier food. And who knows, maybe it will pique their curiosity and they will be more motivated to seek out a farmer eventually.
Hope this is helpful. 🙂
Julie
Thank you! Time to go on the hunt.
@Sappho 100% grassfed is a bit of a misleading term. The milk from the farm where I buy my dairy isn’t 100% grassfed but the butter is deep yellow and the cream is beige. The pasture is amazing and the cows get very very little grain (only during milking – never at other times). There are other 100% grassfed dairies I’ve seen that I’ve made butter from the cream (skimmed off the milk) and the butter is practically white. The pasture is obviously in poor shape and the cows are getting supplemented with hay and silage only. I would prefer the farm where the cows get some grain in that case. It’s not a black and white issue. In your case, the butter is white so I would seek another farm. If the butter isn’t a good color (except in winter when it is going to be lighter as the pasture grass is nil) then seek another farm regardless of whether you are told it is “100% grassfed” or not. Look for results in the product not words that may or may not be fully accurate.
Hi Sarah! I purchase some goat butter from a nearby farm where the goats are mainly grassfed. But the butter is white…Do you know if that is how it is with goat butter ? Or should I mainly stick with raw butter from cows? Thank!!!
Goat butter is different but still wonderful and nutritious .. even milk from all foraging goats is white and not beige like the milk from grassfed cows. Nothing wrong with goat butter but you might want to make sure you get some nice yellow butter from grassfed cows into the mix on occasion.
Why is it that the two brands of raw milk I buy in France don’t have any cream on top? Plus, I can’t find raw cream for sale anyway.
Probably holstein cows. These cows make hardly any cream. Find a farm with jerseys or guernsey or some other old fashioned cow.
There must be somewhere in France to get raw cream. The French love their cream!!! 🙂
I didnt know you could get raw products shipped to you!! Oh boy Im on a mission now!!! And another off topic question since it seems I have a habit of doing this…for the GAPS diet, she uses BIO-KULT and has others for sale on her website but my doctor recommended Pro Bio Gold by Kirkman…have you Sarah or anyone heard of this brand? I called the doc a cpl days ago to ask his opinion about what probiotic I should take and his nurse called back today saying they actually sell the Pro Bio Gold right in the office! Just wondering if anyone knew anything about it. I looked up their website but I dont exactly know everything Im comparing when looking at the two different brands. Even though she talks about it in the GAPS book…its alot to try to grasp all at once. Just looking for some giudance from you’ll lol
I would drive 1000 miles both ways to get raw cream to make raw butter for my kids. No joke. Get enough raw cream and freeze it for the 6 months and only do the trip once or twice a year.
You dont know what you started Sarah! We were planning a trip to South Carolina (I live in MD), and thru research I found out raw milk was legal down there. I had already told my husband when we went down there I was bringing a cooler with ice to bring as much milk home as I could. We can no longer afford to go to South Carolina for a vacation this year, but your comment just got me motivated and Im telling my husband we’re going down there anyways if for only one night so I can stock up on some raw goods!! Thanks for being so determined to keep your family healthy. My husband cant say Im THAT crazy if there are other “normal’ folks out there doing it too! lol
Alexis, if its in the direction you’re headed, try Milky Way Farms in Anderson SC. They also deliver to several places north of there, even to Rock Hill, which is just south of Charlotte, NC. http://www.scmilkywayfarm.com/
What is your experience with cream that is too old to make butter out of (see my comment above)? Maybe freezing it prolongs its life to make into butter?
Using a mixer to “wash” the buttermilk out of the butter? BRILLIANT! I have read in the past “run water through it” and I thought how do I do that under the faucet? Know I know.
I’ve done it different ways and the bag thing is by far the easiest. You just let it run out and then squeeze the bag to get the last drips out and you’re done. The butter tastes fantastic. If it still tastes a bit strong, just wash it again.
we have 3 local raw milk farms from jersey cows.. all on grass…. all this and not one of the farms makes cream……. i hate it..
-jason and lisa-