Homemade Herb Butter
Nothing beats fresh bread and a delicious made-from-scratch herb butter
Butter is one of those creations that once you realize how easy it is to make, you’ll question buying if from the store ever again. It also feels like a cool science experiment. I found myself thinking: “So someone just overmixed cream one day and was like ‘I’m not throwing this out’ and voila, sorted butter?!” Yes, welcome to my brain.
I tell you what though, I can taste the difference in good butter. This may sound unbelievable to some but I remember sitting at a restaurant in Edinburgh and while I waited for my soup to arrive they brought me a plate of fresh bread with a smear of butter slapped on the side of the plate. At first, I was highly skeptical but it was honest to gosh the best butter I may have ever tasted.
While I still have access to all the fresh herbs, I decided to make a herby butter to slather on some yummy bread. While you can substitute for dried, I highly recommend fresh herbs for this as the oils and flavor will come through so much stronger.
So whether your smear it onto the side of your dish, slather it over grilled cheese, or top your next steak with it, this fresh herby butter will add so much delicious flavor to your next dish.
Yields: 1 stick of butter (approx. ½ cup)
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon fresh herbs, chopped
⅛ tsp salt
Directions:
Pour your heavy cream into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and mix on medium-high speed. The mixture will first turn to whipped cream before starting to separate. Once it starts to become separated, with more liquid at the bottom, place a towel over your mixture (or risk the liquid spraying everywhere), and mix until the butter is completely separated from the liquid (which will look like watery milk)
Clump the butter together and place it in a bowl filled with ice water. Squeeze* the butter together in the water, dumping and replacing your ice water as it gets cloudy. Once the water is no longer cloudy, place the butter in a bowl
Add your chopped herbs and salt to the butter and mix with a spoon to blend the flavors evenly throughout the butter
Mold the butter into a log and wrap it in parchment paper before placing in the fridge
Congrats, you’ve made butter! This will keep in the fridge for 2-3 weeks* or frozen for up to 9 months
Tag @accentgolden in your posts on social, I love to see what you’re making!
Notes:
Do not skimp on squeezing the butter in the ice water until the water runs clear. This process gets the remaining buttermilk out of the butter, if not done completely the butter will go rancid within the week
You can store this in the fridge or wrap it and place it in the freezer. I like to slice into discs and freeze any extra butter for future, small-batch use!
