I’ve had making my own butter on my wishlist for literal years. Sad, I know.

But first, we need to flash back to 2022, where I bought a Kenwood A901 – better known as a stand mixer, from eBay. On getting it, there was a problem; the entire machinery was gummed up with long since perished lubricant.

The A901 is a Kenwood model that first launched in the 1970’s, and I think I’m right in saying it was succeeded in the 90’s by a newer model.

I was under the mistaken impression that, in the absence of a wooden churn, one needed a stand mixer to make butter. As a video I recently watched from Atomic Shrimp taught me, you can literally just finger a bowl of cream and get the same result. But by the time I learned that, I’d already dropped money on getting the stand mixer fixed. Three years later.

I’m not mad with my decision. I went with a company called ‘Kenmix Engineering’. The work included a complete respray of the machine as the original tangerine paint had started to come away from the body. I decided – unusually for me – to keep the original colour. One snag; they no longer make the shade of orange, and so it had to be mixed especially. The result? If they’d not told me, I’d never have known!

Anyway. Butter. Make.

I started by adding a bottle of double cream to my doorstep milk order. I live in a cottage, of course I have a milkman.

In preparation for getting my Kenwood back I ended up buying the original booklet that came with it when new, and handily it included a series of recipes – including one for butter!

The recipe calls for the ‘K’ beater attachment, which I thought was odd, as I recall the (many) examples of butter being made in a stand mixer asking for the whisk. No matter, I shall trust in the booklet! K beater attached, cream poured. Time to mix.

The recipe calls for the mixer to be set to 2 or 3 until the fats and buttermilk begin to separate, then turn it down to 1 to prevent splashing.

After a few minutes, something seemed off. The cream was thickening slightly, but beyond that, not much was happening.

I’ve whisked cream by hand in the past, and it’s firmed up a lot faster than it was taking with the machine. I consulted the guide and sure enough, its instruction is simple and adamant in its authority, so I press on.

More time passes, and finally, after cranking the speed up to 5, the mixture is firming up. Once it gets to a granular consistency, progress comes to a halt. The fats aren’t coalescing, and no buttermilk is present. The mixer is also beginning to struggle and whether it is newly repaired or not, I’m wary of pushing it too hard.

I make a decision, and attach the whisk.

Within moments of the machine going back on, the fats come together and buttermilk begins to pool in the bowl. I should have listened to my gut on this one.

I knock the butter out of the whisk attachment and decant the buttermilk into a bowl destined for the fridge – I have a task for this tomorrow.

Having freed all the butter I form it into a bowl and wring out any excess buttermilk before washing it under the tap and drying it. An odd sensation, to be sure.

The voice of my mother was in my head as I was planning on making this – she was a keen baker, but would have looked on such an exercise as frivolous. You can just buy butter, why go to the effort? A fair question, and not one I have a ready answer for if I’m honest – I just wanted to. All the same, I felt at liberty to make this into something you can’t buy in the shops, and so rather than salt the butter, I’ve decided to mix in a generous portion of cajun spice and make spicy butter! It’s better on toast than you might think.