So I heard that it’s possible to make your own butter. For some reason I thought that you needed a cow, the facilities of a dairy and someone with the wizarding skills of Dumbledore.

But apparently I was all wrong and making butter is as simple as whipping cream until it seperates, draining and adding flavour (such as salt). Even a moron like me could do it. So I decided to give it a try!

Start of the process

Halfway through whisking process

After ‘washing’ the butter

Butter!

Ta-dah!

One of the benefits of making your own butter is that the liquid that separates out from the solids is buttermilk, which you can use to make some nice scones to go with your butter.

You can obviously flavour your butter with anything you like – I just salted mine.

Recipe from the Guardian website. 

For 400-450g of butter you’ll need 900ml double cream. Let this come to room temperature while you prepare a few litres of ice-cold water. Use some of this to chill a large mixing bowl, two stiff spatulas and the blades of an electric whisk. Empty out the mixing bowl, pour in the cream and beat it at a medium speed for about 10 minutes. First the cream will thicken, then it will make soft peaks and eventually it will become stiff and form crumbly-looking clumps. Keep on whisking and suddenly you’ll find a whitish liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The liquid is buttermilk, which you can drink or use in baking.

Carry on whisking for a minute or two, until there’s no more liquid to liberate, then remove the whisk. Strain the cream into a container and put it in the fridge.

Now you need to wash your developing butter of any remaining buttermilk, which will make it spoil more quickly. Pour in enough ice-cold water to cover the butter comfortably and use the spatulas to press it down as hard as possible. You’ll quickly see that the water you poured in becomes cloudy. Tip this away and repeat the washing and squeezing process five or six times until the water runs fairly clear. Don’t be afraid to lift up and turn the butter as you go, but work as fast as you can so it doesn’t have time to heat up.

Once the washing is finished, sprinkle over a teaspoon of crumbled sea salt (if that’s the way you roll, butter-wise) and either shape the butter into two or three blocks with the spatulas, or cram it into a couple of glass pots. It will keep for a week in the fridge, or six months in the freezer.