Tart London: How to make flavoured butters

Butter. We just love it. What could be better than warm, crusty fresh bread, smothered with good-quality butter and sprinkled generously with sea salt? It is an essential in our cooking. Health-wise, we think a small amount is totally fine. Obviously if you eat a pack a day, you’ll see the effects on your waistline, but in moderation there’s nothing to worry about. And what you want is good-quality butter from grass-fed cows. Our favourite is the butter produced at Ivy House Farm (available from Neal’s Yard Dairy, Selfridges and La Fromagerie). We visited the family-run farm last year and saw all the dairy being produced. We fully support small British farmers, and always try our hardest to buy free-range milk and butter.

You might not think it but butter is actually really easy to make at home. You can whizz it up in about five minutes, and you don’t need specialist equipment. All you need to do is over-beat whipping cream by pouring it into a food processor and leaving it on for about five minutes until the cream starts to separate. Pour the liquid out: this is buttermilk, which you can use to make muffins, pancakes or soda bread. The remaining solid is butter. Just wrap it up and store it in the fridge, where it will keep for a week or so.

We often make flavoured butter, which is perfect for jazzing up boring veggies, smearing on a chicken for roasting or simply slathering on bread with cheese. Skye Gyngell makes a lovely apricot one, delicious on toast, while Jamie Oliver does a fun Christmas one full of cranberries, rosemary and clementines.

Here are some of our favourite flavours. Swap ingredients in if you like — or simply make up your own!

Parmesan and Pistachio

150g unsalted butter, softened

30g Parmesan, grated

1 shallot, finely chopped

40g pistachios, finely chopped

Mustard and Tarragon

150g unsalted butter, softened

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 bunch tarragon, finely chopped

Pinch of sea salt

Pinch of black pepper

Chilli and Lime

Pinch of cayenne pepper

1 tbsp parsley, chopped

Pinch sea salt

Pinch black pepper

Simply blend all the ingredients for each butter in a food processor, or by hand in a mixing bowl. Wrap in greaseproof paper or cling film and pop into the fridge.