Recipe: make your own butter

OK, so I realise the rest of the world is mocking us norwegians because of our so-called "butter-crisis". And rightly so. Describing a butter shortage as a "crisis" when people are starving to death elsewhere is nothing short of disgusting. But I do like my butter. And I much prefer it to margarine. I don't get why people are moaning so much though - if you want butter: make your own! It's really easy and takes 10 minutes.

Not really a recipe this, more like simple instructions. Just place double cream in your mixer (my 600ml of cream yielded a 250g lump of butter) and whip away:



After a while, you have whipped cream:



But don't stop there. Carry on whipping and you'll see it start to separate:



And whip a little more... see, now it's really curdling up nicely. It's like whipped cream gone really, really bad! The cream has separated into butter and buttermilk.




Next, gather all the lumps of butter and use your hands to start squeezing the buttermilk out. Knead it really well - in a bowl of cold water so the butter doesn't melt. Change water a few times, and when the water runs clean you're pretty much done. Get as much moisture out of it as possible.




At this point you can put your lump of butter in a clean tea towel and squeeze it a little more. I didn't. What I did do though, was add salt to taste. Just sprinkle it on and knead it in. You can make flavoured butter too, by kneading in herbs or spices. Butter for spreading should normally be a little saltier than butter you are using to bake or cook.



And there you have it: home made butter! Kids love helping out with this too, it's a bit magic watching the cream go through the various stages. Why don't you have a go?

PS! You can save the buttermilk to use for baking instead of ordinary milk...

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