A couple of days ago, a friend of mine messaged me to tell me he had started making his own butter. I dismissed it as a very complicated process, and images of him sat in his garden with an old fashioned churner came to mind. I was wrong. All you need is some heavy cream, a whisk (ideally electric), some iced water and about 15 free minutes, which most of us have at the moment. Et voila, butter. I had no idea that butter is essentially just over-whipped cream (which I'm sure will make my mum tut and then ask if I actually know anything about food). But hey, every day is, as they say, a school day. The list of equipment is almost as short as the ingredients list. You will need: The 300ml of cream I used produced 125g of fresh butter. Arguably, the best part of this entire process is the buttermilk by-product, as it can be quite hard to get your hands on in UAE supermarkets. So be sure to sieve your freshly churned butter over a bowl and get every last millilitre of buttermilk you can. Buttermilk is a fermented dairy product, the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. It is a low-fat, tart, acidic product, which makes it a great cooking ingredient. The acid tenderises meat, which is why it is often called for in fried or roasted chicken recipes. It also works to kick-start baking soda, which makes it great in pancake and soda bread recipes, resulting in a well-risen and light finished product. The sour taste also lends itself well to creamy sauces and salad dressings, or fruit smoothies. Now, if you need me, I will be splitting my time between making unnecessary slices of toast, dreaming up creative butter flavours and making batches of buttermilk pancakes or fried chicken.