Inspiration: I know this will come as a shock…I’m a fan of the Great British Bake Off! Not only has it imparted countless tips and tricks to help my bakes, but it’s also given me the courage to try new and intricate recipes. (Whilst it may’ve helped my nerve, that doesn’t mean said creations always turn out flawlessly.)
In any case, while rewatching the show, my husband and I saw the bakers make butter. Recalling the butter churn from an elementary school exposition on turn-of-the-century homesteading, the GBBO method didn’t match up with the forever-taking wooden churn I tried — an alarming number of years ago.
So we decided to give butter making a go….and discovered it was dead easy to make.
With a food processor, at least.
Seriously, you pour heavy cream into the food processor (ours is tiny, about four or five cups) and let it zip along until it turns yellow and solid. (Well, as solid as warm butter ever gets.) Then you squeeze the liquid from the butter using cheese cloth or a sieve, which is buttermilk you can use in other recipes, then rinse the lump of butter off.
And that’s it.
You can put it back into the food processor and add herbs, honey, salt, or whatever you’d like to flavor your butter with, or leave it plain! Plus, it sounds impressive when you tell people you made the butter they’re spreading on their bread! (Because of the uncertainty of the amount of fat in the butter — using it IN your bakes is dicey at best.)
BTW: You don’t need a food processor to make butter. It’s simply what we had on hand. You can use a stand mixer (as the GBBO contestants did), blender, or a bottle with a marble inside.
Need a recipe? Here’s one from the BBC!
Christie: I can see a whole host of Christie’s detectives making this simply delicious spread!
My 52 Weeks With Christie 