Butter and Buttermilk

by Brodie (shamelessly pilfered from wynk's original Ars thread)

This is an awesome idea, and a lot of fun. It's so easy to do. Also good for kids to participate in.

Ingredients

 * 1 pint Cream (non-pasteurized is preferable, but not necessary)
 * Salt (optional)

1 Qt (or more) of cream is fine, it just makes more butter.

Directions

 * 1) Pour cream into a mixing bowl.
 * 2) Beat mercilessly until the butter separates from the buttermilk. You can do this by hand, or in a mixer. If you use a mixer, use the whisk attachment. Aternatively: If you are doing this with children, you can pour some cream into a tightly sealed mason jar and have them just shake it like crazy for a while.
 * 3) Drain buttermilk into a sealable container (mason jar or likewise) This is your buttermilk. You can use this for all kinds of good things, like Buttermilk Pancakes.  Note that this buttermilk is not the same pH as commercially bought buttermilk because the cream was not soured beforehand.  To approximate store-bought buttermilk, you can add a little lemon juice and wait 10 minutes before using in recipes, but it's not quite the same thing.
 * 4) Wrap butter in something porous like cheesecloth, and squeeze lightly to get all the liquid out.
 * 5) Run the butter under cold water, repeating the squeeze-and-drain process. Without this step, your butter could go rancid.
 * 6) (Optional) Knead salt into butter to taste (~1 to 1 1/2 tsp was good for me, using a quart of cream)
 * 7) Mold with a butter mold or by wrapping the butter in wax paper and shaping it. If you'll be using it for baking, it is helpful to weight the butter into 4 oz portions (1/4 cup) before wrapping.

Additional Notes
Butter can be kept in the freezer for a long time if you don't plan to use it immediately.