Want to learn how to make butter? It’s so simple and easy to do. This homemade churn butter activity is a classic idea for making butter in the classroom or at home. Making homemade butter is a fun learning activity for kids of all ages. Homemade butter is budget-friendly and only requires 2-3 ingredients and no special equipment. Learning how to make butter is a fun life skill to learn whether you’re at home or in the classroom.

Learn How How to Make Homemade Butter

Learn how to make butter at home in just a few minutes with cream, a jar, 2 marbles and some “muscle”.

Recently we made homemade butter. It was so easy to do, and the results were delicious! If you’ve never made butter from scratch, this is an experiment you have to try at home or in the classroom with your kids and students!  

You won’t believe how fast and easy it is to turn a cup of cream into a batch of fresh and tasty homemade butter!

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Related: You know what else uses butter? Cookies!

Supplies Needed To Make Churn Butter

• Mason Jar
• Marbles
• Heavy Cream

Directions On How To Make Butter

Step 1

We started by filling the jar about 3/4 full of cream.

Step 2

We added two marbles to help with mixing and put the lid on. I double checked to make sure that the lid was on REALLY tight.

Step 3

Then we put on some fun music and we danced around while we shook the jar. It doesn’t really matter how you shake or how hard you shake them, but you need to keep things moving.

Notes:

It’s best to do this with two people so you can trade off and let your arm rest. After 5 minutes, we had a nice whipped topping.

Step 4

When the cream goes silent, keep shaking. It won’t feel like anything is happening, but your butter still needs a lot more work.

Step 5

Shake until the butter forms together and sticks and moves off of one side to another. There should be buttermilk in your jar and the butter should look smooth, not grainy.

Step 6

Once the butter is done, fill a bowl with ice water.

Step 7

Pour out or save the buttermilk for later. Take the butter, and pat it into a ball and drop it in the water.

Step 8

Do this 3 times until most of the buttermilk has been washed out. This is also the time you would add salt or any other flavorings.

Our Experience With Learning How To Make Butter

I talked a little bit about how butter is made. I explained that basically cream is full of little fat globules but they are all scattered through the liquid. Once the mixing starts, those fat globules find each other and they start to stick together. As they stick together, the cream separates into 2 parts – the fat globules (butter) and the liquid (buttermilk).

As more and more fat globules stick together, a lump of butter begins to form in a pool of buttermilk.

After about 10 minutes of shaking and dancing, we could hear a distinct “thud” as a ball of butter had formed in the jar.

We drained off our liquid and were left with a beautiful batch of fresh, homemade butter. It’s a good idea to rinse the butter under cold water, kind of kneading it with your fingers to remove all of that buttermilk.

Our fresh, butter tasted delicious as it was, but you could add a pinch of salt to it if you’d like.

It’s so yummy on toast as an after school snack and it’s a great learning activity to do with your kids. Try it at home or in the classroom, or even while camping or traveling.

Learning How To MakE Butter at Home with Kids

All we used was a clean jar (the Ball Jars are perfect for this), glass marbles, heavy whipping cream, music, and man-power.

If you have multiple children, they can always trade off when their arms get tired! That way the process of making butter can be sped up and everyone can learn how to make butter!

What To Use Your Homemade Butter For?

Homemade butter can be used for anything you would use regular butter! To me it actually tastes better because you still get hints of buttermilk, which is delicious!

You can put it on toast like we did, cook with it, flavor it (we like salted butter), use it for a butter board, turn it into compound butter! There are so many things to do with it!

More Delicious Recipes To Try From Kids Activities Blog

• Use some of your butter to make this honey butter popcorn.
• Make some bread to enjoy bread and butter!
• Is there anything better than butter and homemade cornbread?
• I love homemade butter on homemade cranberry orange bread.
• Butter and traditional Irish soda bread? Yes please!
• Try this maple bacon butter, it’s delicious.
• Let’s try these delicious flavored butter recipes.

How did your homemade butter turn out? Did your kids like learning how to make butter?