Is there anything more magnificent than butter? When I was a (n admittedly very weird) little kid, one of my favorite delicacies was the cold butter sandwich. I eventually moved on to cold butter and peanut butter sandwiches, which is also very weird (but delicious to my five-year-old palate).

Now, it is absolutely way cheaper to buy butter from the store than to make your own. Heavy whipping cream is pretty expensive.

But what do you do when you get back from the grocery store only to realize you bought an extra carton of heavy whipping cream for a recipe when you already had one in the fridge?

We aren’t fans of wasting food here at Chef & Pauper, especially dairy. I decided the best way to make use of that extra heavy cream that would perish before I got around to using it was to turn it into delicious, herby, garlicy butter!

Don’t worry. Making your own butter isn’t nearly as labor-intensive as it used to be. My favorite method is to use my kitchenaid to whip that cream into submission (and turn it in to butter)!

You can use a hand mixer as well, but be warned, this process takes forever.

Once you’ve poured your cream into your mixing bowl, use the whisk attachment to whip it. Whip it good.

After a minute or two, you’ll notice you’ve made whipped cream! Feel free to just add sugar or honey and disregard the rest of this tutorial if you’re feeling more sweet than savory. I’m not here to judge.

Onward!

You basically just want to keep beating it. The entire process takes about 10 minutes, but it feels like 20 years or so.

When you get to this point you might think you’re done, but you’re wrong! You still have a few minutes to go!

You’ll know your butter is done when it has separated into a solid and a liquid.

Now, squeeze the butter into a sieve to remove the excess buttermilk.

I saved my buttermilk to make biscuits for Brian the next day (we are serious about not wasting food here folks!).

Put the butter back under the mixer and add some minced garlic, salt, and herbs (to taste). Once your flavorful additions are evenly distributed, pack your butter into a container and toss it in the fridge!

Or you can, of course, just start binging on your new creation right away!