If I shake a creamer (small container of cream) wil it turn to butter?

[Ceejaytee]

Okay, I’m moving into Cafe Society territory here, but here’s a recipe for homemade butter/buttermilk from the NY Times, July 1, 2007, which uses a stand mixer. I’ve been dying to try this:

Homemade Butter and Buttermilk

6 cups organic heavy cream

Salt to taste (optional).

1. Pour the cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk. Tightly cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap and start mixer on medium-high speed. The cream will go through the whipped stage, thicken further and then change color from off-white to pale yellow; this will take at least 5 to 8 minutes. When it starts to look pebbly, it’s almost done. After another minute the butter will separate, causing the liquid to splash against the plastic wrap. At this point stop the mixer.

2. Set a strainer over a bowl. Pour the contents of the mixer into the strainer and let the buttermilk drain through. Strain the buttermilk again, this time through a fine-mesh sieve set over a small bowl; set aside.

3. Keeping the butter in the strainer set over the first bowl, knead it to consolidate the remaining liquid and fat and expel the rest of the buttermilk. Knead until the texture is dense and creamy, about 5 minutes. Strain the excess liquid into the buttermilk. Refrigerate the buttermilk.

4. Mix salt into the butter, if you want. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate. Makes about 16 ounces (2 cups) each of butter and buttermilk.

The accompanying article provides some more information on technique (excerpted for fair use reasons):

• Leave the cream out of the refrigerator for a little while first (it works best when it’s around 50 degrees).
• Be sure to cover the bowl with plastic wrap, or it will look as if a milk truck exploded in your kitchen.
• When it starts to look like a solid mass of golden pebbles, it’s almost done. After another minute or so the mixer will start pelting the plastic with liquid. That’s your cue to turn it off. Quickly.
• Set the strainer basket over a bowl and empty the contents of the mixer bowl into the strainer. The white liquid that drains into the bowl below is real buttermilk, nothing like the cultured, processed stuff that goes by the same name. Its sweet, delicate flavor is great in shakes, oatmeal and soups.

[Projammer]

The ex once picked up one of these on eBay and she and the kids have had fun making butter from time to time.

[Morgyn]

@SomeUserName

You could buy one of these

That is one of the coolest web sites I have ever seen!

Folks, you have to check it out. This place sells:[ul][li]Butter churns[]Drying cabinets for pottery[]Legos[]Whole frogs for dissection[]Woodworking tools[]CPR dummies[]A shower curtain with the periodic table on it[/ul] [/li]
How I wish something like this had been available when I was a kid.

[TimeWinder]

@SpaceDog

Couldn’t you just use a food processor?

Yes. I’ve done this several times with cream that was near it’s expiration date (I make a lot of ice creams, so I’ve usually got cream around). Takes very little time; couple of minutes or so in my industrial-strength food processor.

It’s interesting to watch. It goes from liquid to slowly-thickening whipped cream, stays at that point for a minute or so, then starts getting little “rough” specks, and then in the course of about ten seconds “evaporates” into a big chunk (or several small ones) of butter and thin “buttermilk.”

The butter’s good, too. If you prefer salted butter (and most folks do for spreading), add the salt at the “thick whipped cream” stage – it’s hard to get it beaten in if you wait until it’s actually butter.