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What could be better?

I love butter. I want my butter all fat and all full of flavor. Give me real creamy butter or deprive me of it. I won’t hold high anything in between.

For a person who loves butter this much, you’d think I’d try to make it sooner. But neither did I know I could, nor how. As with a lot of things, it’s more special when it happens at the right time. (Haha…I crack myself up.) This butter would not be here if we did not have leftover heavy cream that we did not want to consume in one sitting of strawberry with crepes. I don’t know, I just didn’t want it to go to the dairy purgatory and find out later we have a bad cream. And it was such a nice “experiment” with excellent results.

I remembered reading about people putting heavy cream in a gallon bottle and shake it until the butter forms. We don’t have that kind of bottle and I wasn’t about to labor for it that long. I also read that you can use your hand mixer and I can deal with that. So the cream transformed from this:

To this:

To something that resembles butter, which I thought would never come:

Then into butter AND liquid (I read in some places that this is buttermilk):

Oh, hello!!!

And it went right into my toast.

I will add that I only got a bite of this because before I knew it, Dan finished it.

And what did I do with the remaining liquid (buttermilk?)? I used it to soak chicken tenders. Nothing’s wasted.

If you’re up for it, here’s you need to make (unsalted) butter:

• Heavy cream
• Hand mixer or stand mixer
• Deep bowl (the liquid will start to splatter once the butter starts forming)

And all you need to do is beat the cream until butter forms. For about 10 minutes, I think. I lost track of time. You’ll see the yellow butter form. Don’t stop the first time you see it. Mix it further for about 5 minutes until the solids separate in clumps from the liquid. After that, you just need to squeeze out the liquid (I used clean hands) and transfer it to a container or measure it out in tablespoons or cups as you wish.

You can also put the butter in a separate mixing bowl and add salt and whatever spices and herbs you like, then roll it in parchment paper. I think homemade butter would be perfect for making butter with herbs.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TASTE of homemade butter? SO GOOD. I might have to make butter for our toasts from now on. It’s worth the effort, definitely.