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Last month our toddler made homemade butter at preschool. When I picked him up, all of his teachers raved about how excited he got over the process. (I honestly think it was just the churn, but hey, we’ll go with all of it!) We’re working really hard on our “b” sounds in speech therapy, so I thought this was the perfect project to try at home!
We’re trying to watch our spending, so I didn’t want to purchase another gadget. Luckily, a quick Pinterest search showed it’s possible to make homemade butter with your KitchenAid mixer!
The process itself for making butter is incredibly easy – I was shocked! Because of the ease, it is a great activity to tie into other learning opportunities for little ones – direction words, fine motor skills and speech prompting! I’ll share the how-to first, then all the learning opportunity ideas in italics for each step! Enjoy!
How to Make Homemade Butter with a Mixer
Ingredients and Supplies
- 2 cups heavy cream
- Stand mixer with whisk attachment
- Spatula
- Kitchen towel
- Paper towels
- 2 containers with lids
Instructions
Start by preparing the area and gather all supplies. (If your toddler knows his way around the kitchen ask him to help. This is great for one or two step directions. i.e. “Please pick one towel and place it on the counter.”)
Pour the heavy cream into the mixing bowl. (Great chance to practice pouring! Since its coming straight from the spout, pretty mess free! Also, emphasize the “puh” in pour if you’re working on bilabials like we are!)
Turn on mixer to “4” setting for 2 minutes, then up it to “6” setting. Three minutes later (5 minutes total) you’ll have whipped cream! Pause the mixer and have a taste! (Talk your toddler through the process of what is happening – adding air to make it thick, etc. I asked over and over what we were making to get a repetitive “buh” for butter, another bilabial.)
Crank mixer back up to “6”. At this point you’ll see the cream begin to separate. Keep it going! But, stop and scrape the sides with the spatula as necessary. (Time to practice the last bilabial sound “mmmmm” for mix!)
After about another minute, you’ll hear sloshing. Grab the towel and drape over the mixer to prevent splatters. (Nothing educational here – just a ton of laughs as the liquid splashes out of the bowl and a fun game of peekaboo.)
Keep mixing for one more minute. (Make it a counting countdown!)
Remove the towel and stand in AWE of your homemade butter! (Praise them, get them excited, say “butter” a million times, clap, jump up and down, you get the idea!)
Final Steps for Homemade Butter
Y’all, just call yourself Betty Crocker – you just made homemade butter in a mixer! We were so proud of the result!
What’s the liquid? That’s buttermilk! Two cups of heavy cream yields about 1 cup of homemade butter and 1 cup of buttermilk.
Keep the mixer arm up for a couple minutes to allow as much buttermilk to separate from the butter. (That whisk attachment sure is handy to hold all your precious butter!)
Using the spatula transfer the butter to a small bowl. Lay out a paper towel and place “dump” butter on top. (I wish there was a prettier word to use than dump…)
Roll up butter tightly in paper towel to squeeze out any excess liquid. Repeat 1-2 more times as necessary.
Transfer butter and buttermilk to separate air tight containers and store in refrigerator.
You butter believe it!
And that’s it! The only thing left to do is slather (and I do mean slather) some of your homemade butter onto a piece of bread and enjoy!
While it may sound like we had a picture perfect time of making our butter… let me assure you we spent more time talking about using “listening ears” than the speech therapy I had hoped to practice! In the process I discovered that it’s not the mixer that he enjoys, but the act of putting stuff IN the mixer. I had to ward off M&Ms, blueberries, cherry tomatoes and an apple in the quick time span!
So what’s next? We used the buttermilk to make biscuits!
Maybe we should turn our butter into cinnamon butter for a sweet, sweet combination.
Are you a speech therapy momma? What are your favorite ways to weave practice into your daily routine? Please share below!
Homemade Butter in a Mixer
Ingredients
- 2 cups heavy cream close to room temperature
Instructions
- Pour heavy cream into mixer bowl.
- Turn on mixer to "4" setting for 2 minutes, then up to "6" for 3 minutes. At this point, you should have whipped cream!
- Continue mixing on "6" for 5 more minutes. The cream will begin to separate. Scrape sides with spatula as necessary.
- Mix for another minute or until you hear sloshing.
- Drape towel over the mixer to prevent splatters.
- Mix for an additional minute. Turn off mixer, remove towel. The butter will be in the whisk and buttermilk will be in the base of the bowl!
- Transfer butter to small bowl, then transfer to a paper towel. Roll tightly to squeeze out excess liquid. Repeat as necessary.
- Transfer butter and buttermilk to air tight containers and store in the refrigerator.
