Buttering it up: a weekend treat

Making butter is super easy and a lot of fun! All you need is some double cream, a mixer/food processor, a bowl and a sieve.

Here is how to get started…

Pour the double cream (I used 660 ml but it’s not significant) into your mixer/food processor and turn it on. I usually use a medium speed but you can choose. Imagine that you are just going to thicken up or whip your cream.

Once it looks like whipped cream, don’t stop. Keep whisking and after a few minutes you will notice that the cream has separated into yellow globules (this is the butter) and a white liquid (this is the buttermilk). This is the part that I really enjoy!

Of course, traditionally this ‘churning’ would have been done by hand and would have been much harder work! We have it much easier nowadays.

Now strain everything through a sieve (or a colander is fine too). Keep the buttermilk as you may want to use this later. I have a nice recipe for buttermilk scones (more later) and so nothing needs to be wasted.

You now need to ‘wash’ your butter. Do this by squeezing it and straining through the sieve under cold running water. You will need to get your hands messy at this stage!

Your butter should now stick together and should really look like butter and you are now ready to shape and mould.

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Place your butter on a wooden board and shape it however you like. I tend to use wooden butter pats (see picture) but these are not necessary. You can just use your hands to make the shape that you want or you can pop it into a little bowl.

If you want to add salt, garlic, herbs etc now is the time to do so. I usually just leave it as it is. It is really delicious!

Top tip: Use cold water to keep you hands/butter pats cold as this will prevent sticking to hands/surfaces etc.

You can now let your butter dry out a little on baking paper. You can then wrap it up, place in the fridge and enjoy when you are ready.

‘Hobbit Day’ is coming soon…watch out for more tasty treats!