Did you know that you could make butter at home from just a few tubs of cream? Crazy, I know. So if you find yourself out of butter but there’s a few tubs of cream lying around, then you know what to do. The fun thing is you could add in so many other ingredients to make your very own flavoured butter.

Now, onto the science. Cream is made up of 2 things: fat solids (the butter) and buttermilk. So all you need to do is separate the 2 by overwhipping the cream, causing it to split. Then, wash out as much of that buttermilk as possible so that the butter can last longer.

Ingredients

600ml heavy cream
Salt

I’m telling you, it really is simple.

Method

In a stand mixer, beat your heavy cream. After 6-7 mins, you will get whipped cream but do NOT stop! Keep the mixer churning for another ~10 mins or so until your cream starts to split. You should see liquid and clumps of butter. Keep going until no more liquid is being produced.

Drain your butter and buttermilk mixture through a sift. (This liquid is called buttermilk! Which you can use to make buttermilk pancakes and more so don’t throw it away). Clump your butter together into one massive ball.

In a bowl of iced water, wash your ball of butter by squeezing out all the buttermilk (you want to get rid of all the buttermilk that’s still left in the butter so it’ll last longer). Replace your iced water and wash until the water runs clear.

[optional] If you would like to make salted butter, now is a good time to add 1 tbs of salt into the butter or any other flavourings you’d like.

Spread your washed butter into a log onto a piece of parchment paper. Roll the parchment paper tight and twist on both ends. Refrigerate and serve.