What’s better than butter? BETTER BUTTER.

You may be asking yourself – ‘how do you possibly improve the creamy deliciousness of butter?’ Make it at home!

Homemade butter seems like a thing of the past but making butter at home is incredibly easy.

What we love about making butter at home is that we not only get beautiful butter – we also get buttermilk.

I have to tell you, nothing is more delicious than my Mum’s buttermilk pancakes on a Sunday morning.

When raw milk is left to stand, it separates into skim milk and cream. The cream has proteins and fats in it. When you shake the cream, the fat sticks together to form butter, leaving behind liquid buttermilk, which contains the proteins.

To make butter, only takes about 10 minutes (really!) from start to finish and it’s easy to freeze – so you always have butter on hand!

And as if that weren’t enough, it also gives you the opportunity to add flavours right from the start (lavender-honey butter, anyone?). So, save your tastebuds and skip the extra packaging by making your own butter.

You can use a blender, food processor or standing mixer to create the agitation needed to turn cream into butter. Just pour the heavy whipping cream in, turn it on, and watch it go.

You’re just beating the cream until it “starts to look like scrambled eggs” and separates into butter and buttermilk. This will happen around the 9 minute mark – scrape down the sides, add salt, and continue mixing until the butter is fully separated from the liquid (which is whey)

Congratulations, you just made buttermilk!

Strain it through a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Squeeze the pieces of butter together, forming one mass and helping to remove any excess buttermilk. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.

Use the salted buttermilk to add a mild creamy flavour to soup stock or sauces. Or leave the salt out to use the buttermilk for coffee or baked goods such as buttermilk pancakes… yum! Or use the butter in your pie crusts!

You can also add salt to hard butter by gently folding it in with your fingers.

Remember that butter freezes excellently – if you wrap it up and put into the freezer. For best quality, use it within 3 months.

– By Eve Ballard