Homemade White Butter/LoNi

 

My mom used to make homemade white butter - which we call LoNi/लोणी  in Marathi - every fortnight or so. She would painstakingly collect the cream (saai/साय ) and then add a spoonful of yogurt to prevent it from turning rancid. After every few weeks or so, she would churn it using a wooden yogurt churner stick - which we call Ravi/रवी  in Marathi. A huge dollop of homemade butter would start lurking out from that cream collection. The remaining buttermilk was used for making kadhi and some white butter would be retained to serve with bread, bhakri or thalipeeth and remaining butter was clarified to make toop/ तूप /ghee.

Here in the United States, I don't collect cream because we don't even drink full fat milk. But very rarely, I make white butter. It's a simple process here. I just use heavy whipping cream and churn it to turn it into butter. This process was taught to me by a lady who was acting as a pioneer woman at the local dairy farm festival.

Homemade White Butter - American Desi way
Ingredients
Heavy whipping cream

Method
1. Keep on churning or whirling the heavy whipping cream either using butter churner or blender. Add a cup of water.

2. You will see butter floating on top.
3. Drain and scoop the butter out.

4. You can use the remaining buttermilk for making kadhi, mattha or as a stock for daily daals.

Note -
1. I use both wooden butter churner and mixer depending on my mood. The above picture is using Magic Bullet. If using mixer or processor, the butter is ready in the matter of seconds.
2. Refrigerate the homemade butter, covered tightly and use as needed.

A lady who is pretending to be a pioneer woman at the local dairy farm festival, churning butter from heavy cream.

Print Page