Butter is a fridge staple in many homes, but with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, I’ve been looking at ways to cut my food shop, and proper butter is becoming expensive. After seeing recipes for homemade butter online, I wondered if it was really as easy as it looked. It involves using just some double cream and a little sea salt if you prefer salted butter, but that is it. It involves just one or two ingredients, and it is much healthier than the shop-bought alternative.
It’s cheaper, too, with a pot of double cream retailing for as little as £1. This is significantly more affordable than the Lurpak I was buying for a whopping £5, and I got nearly the same amount. I grabbed my stand mixer, a pot of double cream and got making homemade butter.
You can do this by hand with an electric whisk or with a butter churner, but I wouldn’t recommend it with just a whisk, as it’ll take too long.
I started by pouring a 300ml tub of double cream into my stand mixer and attaching the whisk before setting it off to mix on a medium setting.
It’ll take a few minutes to reach soft peaks and a further few minutes to reach stiff peaks.
Although it feels wrong to whisk it further, I continued to whisk until it started to separate from the liquid.
This took around seven minutes, and once the liquid was swishing around in the bottom, it was time to turn the mixer off.
Once whisked, discard the buttermilk into a jug or bowl using a sieve. I use the buttermilk for pancakes, and it can also be used for a chicken coating.
Make sure to press down hard on the butter to release all of the excess liquid.
Doing so will ensure the butter lasts longer in the fridge, as it will remove the buttermilk, which can make it turn bad quickly.
After this, I grabbed a large bowl and put some cold water and a couple of ice cubes into it. The ice cube step is completely optional, but I find it gives the best results.
Now, it’s time to wash the butter to remove any more of the buttermilk. It’s important to do so until the water is clear, which means changing it a couple of times.
Now is the stage to add your flavourings. I like to keep it simple with some fine sea salt flakes, but garlic or paprika also works a treat.
Once I put a few sea salt flakes onto the butter, I give it a quick mix with a wooden spoon before rolling the butter up in parchment paper, and just like that, it’s done.
This butter was so delicious, and you wouldn’t be able to taste too much of a difference. In fact, the homemade alternative tasted much fresher, and I enjoyed eating it knowing exactly what was in it.
This homemade butter makes the perfect amount to gift too, and with Christmas just a few months away, I’ll certainly be making family members some.