I love butter. My last meal on earth would be a fresh crusty baguette, lashings of butter and a generous sprinkling of sea salt flakes.

In a fleeting but increasingly frequent moment of wanting to escape the corporate rat race, ‘romance the ordinary’ and return to a simpler way of life, I decided to buy a butter churner online, cultivate my culinary prowess and make my own butter.

How was my first attempt you ask? Well, after a vigorous 10 minutes of manual spiral churning my bingo wings were cramping, so I chucked it in the stand mixer. Early butter making involved tying a dog or a horse to a treadmill to power the churn. I don’t think my rotund French Bulldog would have been amused with me testing that out, I would have probably put her in an early grave.

Ten minutes of whisking later, and a fair bit of splattering on a medium-high speed, it finally separated and I had butter! However, it wasn’t the yellow sunshiny hue I was expecting. Colour is all down to the quality of your cream, and that comes from the milk of grass-fed cows, and the natural pigment, beta-carotene, found in the grass. Grass-fed cows will then provide milk with more of this carotene in it which therefore results in butter which is a richer yellowy colour and flavour, as opposed to cows fed on dry feed or grain.

The cows my milk/cream came from were clearly not grazing in idyllic green pastures, as my butter was white as snow.

Heavy cream or whipping cream are all suitable choices for making homemade butter as they have the highest percentage of butterfat, which then yields the most butter.

Was it edible you ask? It was palatable.  Will it win a place the World Champion Cheese contest – erm no. Will I be rolling out the croissant dough this weekend? Afraid not.

I have taken two croissant making courses in Paris now and I still cannot get it right. To be fair at the first class, the chef pâtissier (who was from Texas), arrived late on his scooter and poured us all a glass of champagne (or as he called it, air quote: ‘breakfast wine’) on arrival, as we were putting our aprons on. Not much was mastered in the kitchen that day.

Back to the butter, overall, sadly a far less romantic gastronomic ritual than what I had conjured up in my mind. I never even got to hand knead it with the charming little wooden panels that were included in my purchase.

Needless to say, you won’t find said churner on my Product recommendation section. However, you will find the fabulous Kilner Jars on there, which I procured to culture my cream in. Beautiful to look at and functional, I will have to find them a new purpose now, leaning towards pickling something instead.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering, The World Champion Cheese Contest is a technical cheese, butter and yoghurt competition established in 1957 in the USA. Cabot Creamery’s salted butter won the top prize at this year’s contest, it won best in class – and is also Hampton queen Ina Garten’s favourite butter apparently. I love Ina, and her ‘how easy is that’ mantra, said after every dish she makes. Not in the case of my butter making sadly.

I traipsed around a few grocery stores and searched online for Cabot Creamery butter but it doesn’t appear to be available in Dubai.

I did however find another butter from Australia which caught my eye whilst perusing the grocery shelves (see photo attached to article). Pepe Saya Butter from Australia. What a great label I thought! Now one must never buy anything based on label design alone. Ahem, I say with an expression mirroring the haughty look of who I assume is Mr. Saya on said label).

Oh, the lies I tell myself, my nose is growing and starting to resemble Mr. Saya’s elongated schnoz as I write this… I will admit, I have on occasion chosen a bottle of vino based on an appealing/humorous label. Buying based on aesthetic appeal is not a shameful act, I’m not a daredevil by nature so from time to time, this is top tier thrill seeking for me.

Mr. Saya’s butter was delicious, handmade, batch churned butter. Adding to my assemblage of about 10 different butters currently sitting in my fridge. Side note: my cholesterol levels are fine.

What’s your favourite butter? Send me an email at [email protected] and tell me what’s in your butter keeper!