To make butter at home you can buy ready made full cream or else you can use cream (malai) from the milk. However, this fresh cream from the milk has to be collected everyday for 10 days and stored in refrigerator in an airtight container.
To churn out butter, cream should be at room temperature. Bring out cream or malai from the refrigerator. Let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Keep iced water ready in two separate bowls.
Transfer cream to a stand mixer or a mixing bowl. Start whisking it at medium speed. Initially, the cream will start to thicken and you will get whipped cream with smooth peaks. This is STAGE 1.
Continue to whip the cream. The texture of the cream will now turn grainy or granules will form. This is STAGE 2.
Keep whipping the cream at high speed – it will look curdled and you’ll see some liquid (buttermilk) separating from the cream. This is STAGE 3. At this point, the buttermilk will begin to splash all around. Cover the bowl with a kitchen napkin or towel to avoid a messy splash all over the place.
Continue to whisk until the tiny lumps of butter are clearly separated. At this final stage, the butter will now start sticking to the whisk. Add 2 cups of ice-cold water. It will solidify the butter. Try to form a ball of butter with your hands.
Transfer the homemade butter to another bowl filled with clean ice cold water. Wash the butter chunk nicely. You can press it in a muslin or cheesecloth to drain excess liquid. Bring the edges of the cheesecloth together and press gently to extract as much buttermilk from the butter as possible.
Store the homemade butter in a clean, airtight bowl in the refrigerator.