When I was a kid, we had milk cows, and if I put those two words together, milkcows, the autocorrect on my electronic device wants to change them to "millions!"
Well, we seemed to have millions of cups of milk. If you allow that milk to sit, cream separates and rises to the top. We could also use a cream separator but it wasn't run by electricity ...
Anyway, several cups (a gallon!) Of that cream could be poured into a square glass churn and the handle turned until the butter separated out as little clumps. If you then poured the contents of the churn through a screen of some sort, we used a threadbare dish towel, you could squeeze the clumps together and - there you go.
Cartoons were on teevee, we would use two quart canning jars instead of the square glass churn because they were easier to hold while sitting on the couch. Shaking and shifting the cream in the jars works the same as churning it and, if you are watching teevee, it's nearly electronic ...
NyBoy, you should know that fresh butter has very little flavor. I suppose, at most, it tastes a little like clover. Ours did, anyway ... everything about our cows tasted and smelled a little like clover, their milk, their meat, even cow burps!
Anyway, butter is like cheese and develops flavor as it ages. Like me! Some of us go rancid but young women now hold doors for me! I'm looking forward to a time when they call me "sweetie!" A little salt may help the process ...
I was in the UK in the spring and bought a mini churner. It has like a quart glass jar for the base. I have made regular butter then a really good cinnamon honey butter to go on biscuits! I don't shake like @digitS' but mine has a whisk-like thing that spins when you turn the handle. The next recipe I want to try is lime and chili to go on fish filets!
I have made butter -- as part of our classroom dairy unit. A small baby food jar -- shaken, not stirred -- and you had butter. Some chose to add a bit of salt, some chose to add a bit of juiced carrot for that butter color, everyone liked the results, but making our own ice cream was preferred.
I've never done it but I vaguely remember my mother doing it, our family had a grocery/dry goods store back in the 30s and 40s. If there was a bottle of cream that hadn't been sold and before it went sour she'd make butter out of it, I believe she used a mixmaster or maybe they were just called an electric beater back then.
Annette
I've done it - as a novelty sort of thing, just to see if I could.
Whole, raw milk at room temp.
Half fill a quart jar.
Shake through 1 whole episode of I Love Lucy.
Pour off the buttermilk - TADAA! Butter!
(use the buttermilk to make cornbread to spread the butter on..)
I've seen that too.... could be why it took so long for my jar to 'churn'.
Once it's a solid lump - you add a little salt (and herbs if you want). I didn't think it had less 'flavor', it just didn't have any of the 'processed' taste. Just simple, creamy goodness.
Unsalted butter here. I use it on toast, and cooking.
I don't make it though. The only time I ever did, was in kindergarten when the teacher brought in one of those glass jar butter churns.