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Making Butter

making butter

We have made butter a few times, but we got the idea of adding maple syrup from the book, Weird, Wacky & Wild Stuff You Can Make At Home. This activity kept us all busy during the long hours of Hurricane Sandy. We were lucky enough to keep power throughout the storm, but it was DARK outside – these photos were taken in the middle of the day.

Lily got to make butter at the library last year, and so Emma and Johnny were quick to pick that activity out of the book – and luckily we had everything we needed!

butter making for kids

We put a little cream and a tiny amount of maple syrup (just for fun, suggested in the ALEX Toys book) in a container for each kid, and they set to work, shake, shake, shaking!

 It’s really cool to see the cream magically transform into butter. Here you can see that two of the containers have undergone the transformation, while the third (on the right) is at more of a whipped cream phase:

stages of butter making

And here are all three containers, each with their pat of butter sitting in some (mostly skim) milk:

freshly made butter

Mike had made bread the day before, so the kids got to enjoy homemade butter on homemade bread:

spreading homemade butter on bread

You could barely taste the maple syrup in the butter, but it sure made the leftover milk taste amazing!

skim milk leftover from making butter

Have you made butter before? I highly recommend it if you haven’t – just use a small amount of cream for the size of the jar – the shaking is more effective that way. We’ll be making butter again soon as a Thanksgiving activity.

MaryAnne lives is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

20 thoughts on “Making Butter”

    1. Depends how much cream you use. It goes faster with less cream in a larger container. I would say anywhere from 2-8 minutes when we have done this.

  1. Oh, how neat that you are a blogger for Alex toys. We love their craft products like, for example, washable makeup. Making butter during hurricane sounds like a good way to pass time.

    1. We’ll have to try their washable makeup. I am thrilled to be working with them, because I think they are a fantastic company with great products.

  2. I’m trying to think of what my favorite products from them is, and I’m thinking we have some of their dollhouse toys……. You ever notice how as soon as you’re asked that you forget what you like?

  3. Homemade butter on homemade bread – yum! I do really like the Alex toys I have seen and believe it or not we can get some of them here! We have the water flutes that you can fill to different levels to get different tones. My girls adore them.

  4. I have heard of Alex Toys! I think the play cooktop that I bought for the kitchen set Jeremy made Emma G years ago was from them. What an exciting sponsorship! I’ve made homemade butter once. SO good! Even better on homemade bread.

  5. Love Alex toy products! My daughter has tried a number of the activity sets they have (and we also enjoy giving those as birthday gifts!). I didn’t realize you were a blogger for them – they made a great choice with that! :-) And real butter — love when kids can learn that there are so many food items that can be made and don’t have to be packaged and bought at a store.

    1. I’m thrilled to be blogging for them! We often give their activity sets as birthday gifts, too – I actually discovered the company a few years back when Emma got one of their sets from a friend for her birthday!

  6. What an exciting sponsorship!

    We make butter and use the resulting buttermilk for pancakes. I hadn’t thought about adding maple syrup! Homemade butter is so nice for spreading, as Johnny is demonstrating on that delicious-looking slice of bread.

    1. I bet that buttermilk makes delicious pancakes! The maple syrup makes it taste amazing. And I am very excited about working with ALEX Toys!

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