Butter - melted, whipped into icing, spread so thickly on my toast that I can see my teeth marks in it - brings me great joy. What doesn't make me so happy is news that butter prices are reaching the $10 mark in parts of Aotearoa.
It's not that pricey in my local supermarket - yet - but it can only be a matter of time. There are signs limiting how many you can buy though (maybe in case a Lotto winner wants to spend up large?) which seems like madness in a country that makes so much of the stuff.
According to the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ), New Zealand's dairy herd produced about 286,000 tonnes of butter in 2023 - but 266,000 tonnes of that butter mountain was exported. That means Kiwis were left with about four kilos (or eight 500g packets) of butter per person (not much over a year if you're a fan).
Is it possible to beat the cost increases and availability issues by making your own butter at home? I decided to find out.
What do you need to make butter?
It takes a litre of cream to make about 500g butter (the same size as a standard 'pound' that you buy at the supermarket).
Making your own butter also gives you two end products - the butter, and the buttermilk that comes out of it. This buttermilk isn't the same as the 'cultured' buttermilk you can buy at the supermarket, but you can still use it in smoothies, on cereal and in baking. It tastes like low-fat milk, but be careful to strain it carefully if you're planning to drink it straight (stray globs of butter can be a bit disturbing). I'd also think twice about sloshing it into a cup of tea or coffee for the same reason.
So, paying $7.69 for a litre of cream and ending up with two products - butter and buttermilk - sounds like a bargain if you're paying close to $10 for the butter alone.
What this doesn't account for is the time you need to invest in making it - and a whole lot of other factors.
I chose two methods for my investigation: going old school by shaking it in a jar and going hands-free with a food processor.
The basic principle is the same for both methods, in that the aim is to separate the butter solids from the whey. If you've ever whipped cream, you'll know that there's a point at which you can stuff it up and turn billowy white clouds into greasy yellow clumps. Making butter means feeling the fear of reaching that stage and pushing past it anyway.
Shake it off - the jar method
Making your own butter in this way is the kind of 'fun family game' that organic parenting bloggers or homesteaders wax lyrically about. Let me tell you now: to make this 'fun' you'll need a large family with impressive upper body strength and a high threshold for boredom.
The method is basic: half-fill a large jar with room temperature cream, add a couple of glass marbles, screw on the lid and shake. And shake. And shake. And shake some more, until the butter solids separate from the whey.
Sounds easy, right?
In theory, yes. It took me about five minutes of shaking before the cream reached the perfect consistency for dolloping on porridge or a cake. After 10 minutes, it felt like not much had changed except my triceps were on fire and I was cursing the fool who thought this was a good story idea.
After 15 minutes, I was sweaty and needing a lie-down. At about the 20-minute mark, when I felt like I'd been shaking the jar for hours, my visual journalist colleague Reece took over shaking duties. At that point, the magic happened and the contents of the jar separated into a buttery yellow mass and white liquid. If I wasn't so knackered I might have run a victory lap around the kitchen. In any case, I needed to save some energy for phase two.
After draining off the liquid, you need to knead the butter and 'wash' it in cold water to help extract any remaining whey. This part is important; the more buttermilk you 'wash' out of the butter, the longer it will stay fresh. In terms of effort, this is much easier than shaking the jar, but still a bit of a process.
Hands-free - making butter in a food processor
If you've got a food processor, making your own butter is about as low-impact as pressing 'start'.
All you need to do is pour the cream into the processor, attach the lid and turn it on. At this point you can make a coffee or doom scroll for five or six minutes, by which time the cream will have transformed into yellow clumps sloshing around in watery buttermilk. From here, you remove it from the processor and repeat the washing stage above. Easy as!
No whey: making your own butter can be done, but it takes a bit of muscle or machinery. Photo: Lucy Corry / RNZ
But is it worth it?
After a morning spent making butter in front of a camera I never wanted to eat it again, but other judges in my household reckoned it was a successful experiment, praising its smooth texture and "fresh" taste. "It tastes just like butter," the teenage critic said. The next day, she happily slurped up a smoothie made out of the buttermilk (though admittedly I didn't tell her what it was).
From a purely economic standpoint however, it's hard to make the argument for DIY butter unless you have ready access to a house cow, Ballerina Farm-style, or can buy cream on super special. If you have a thing for cultured butter (that's the fancy stuff that has a more complex flavour and costs twice as much as the ordinary sort), then it's definitely cheaper to make that yourself if you make homemade crème fraiche first.
The average urban householder might save a dollar or two by making their own butter, but it's difficult to quantify the cost of your own labour. Using the jar method might build arms worthy of an Olympic rower over time, but eating all the resulting butter would probably negate that benefit for the rest of the body.
If, however, you like a bit of kitchen action and enjoy boasting to anyone who will listen that you've made your own butter, this is a DIY project that'll bring you much joy. As the great Julia Child once said, 'with enough butter, anything is good'.
