All I need is one bite: Butter is easy and makes everything delicious. Here is how to make some of your own.

There’s nothing “butter” than giving a gift for the holidays — a gift from your heart, especially when you learn how simple it is to make butter. It is seriously so easy to make! Hi, I’m Reesha. Long-time listener, first-time butter churner-er.

All it takes is a few simple seasonings and some heavy whipping cream to make your own butter. When I stumbled upon a TikTok video of someone making their own homemade butter, I thought to myself, “You know what? I should try it myself, especially when I looked in the fridge and only saw half a teaspoon of butter left. I discovered you only need two ingredients to make butter yourself in today’s modern age — namely, a container of heavy whipping cream and some salt to your taste.



It only took me about 45 minutes to make, but that was because I had no idea what I was doing. Fair warning: If you give homemade butter as a holiday gift to family and friends, be prepared for them to look at you like you have three eyeballs. At least, this was the look on my child’s face when I told her what I was planning on making in the kitchen.

“You’re gonna give people butter?” she asked me, shaking her head in judgment and walking away. In my defense..

. Butter (along with everything else) is rather expensive at the grocery store, and since I want to cut a few corners, the other day, I had the brilliant idea to make my own butter at home. How hard could it be? I’ll buy some heavy whipping cream at the store, make my own butter at home, and save myself some money! I can even make some extra butter and give some out as holiday gifts to my closest friends.

After that, I thought to myself in front of the heavy cream aisle at the Safeway, I can rent out a commercial kitchen, start making my own gourmet butter, and sell it at farmers’ markets all over the state. Then I could start my own gourmet butter empire, and become the Martha Stewart of butter! And that's how I will become a multi-millionaire! Once I finally snapped out of my daydreaming, I saw the price of a 32-fluid ounces of heavy whipping cream. Whoa, it was nearly $7? I realized immediately it was way cheaper to just buy the butter from the store.

Unless you’re making artisan butter. I decided to make my own artisan butter from home, and with gusto. Let’s explore the gift of giving homemade food this holiday season, shall we? The first thing I’d like to say as someone who has zero experience giving a homemade gift to someone for the holidays, I’d wager that the more homemade and artsy-fartsy the gift is, the better for the receiver.

The 'giftee,' if you will. I tried to rope my 13-year-old child into making homemade butter with me. I wanted us to have the lovely memory of us churning our own butter minus the Holly Hobby bonnets and yelling “Hey, Paw!” out the window like Laura Ingalls Wilder.

She was having no parts of it. “Why are you making your own butter?” she asked me with baby teenage angst. Who knew that heavy whipping cream can turn into butter? I sure didn't.

“Because I can,” I replied. “Now watch what I do so that you can learn something!” I asked her to pour in two cups of heavy whipping cream. She huffed, and puffed, and poured the two cups of cream into our mixing bowl (Note: having an automatic mixing bowl will make creating this holiday gift a breeze).

Next, I listed off the dry ingredients we were adding to this recipe to give it some artisan oomph. “Who is ‘we’,” she asked. Ahhh, that kid! • 2 Cups of Heavy Whipping Cream • Salt to taste • Dried Parsley Flakes • Italian Seasoning • Iodized Salt (although I did give that pink Himalayan salt sitting in my pantry a cocked eyebrow) • A freshly grated garlic clove over the mixing bowl plus one minced garlic clove for a little razzle dazzle Did I add anything else? Hmm, no, I don’t think so.

I didn’t want to go overboard on my first try. P.S.

My child calls my recipe, “A Little Bit of This and That” Butter. At first, making butter looks like a frothy meringue. In the second stage, the butter looks more like eggs.

The final stage is when the milk separates from the butter in your mixing bowl, that means it's time to take out the butter. Your butter will go through a few noticeable stages. First, it would thicken up and become frothy.

I call this stage, “It Looks Like Merengue.” The second stage is the part I call, “It Looks Like Eggs.” The final stage of your gourmet homemade butter is where the buttermilk separates from the solids and it starts to look like real butter.

You drain out the buttermilk through a strainer and you can either keep it for baking things that need buttermilk or toss it. I decided to keep it, but I’m not sure what for yet. I grabbed the big ball of butter, split it into three little balls, and squeezed the milk out of each ball.

The piece de résistance of your artisan homemade butter holiday gift is a three-part experience: dropping the balls of butter into an ice bath to firm it up, using your hands to shape the ball into the size and shape you desire, and then wrapping it up in Saran wrap. Fun fact: Saran Wrap is a product name, not what you actually call the thin plastic wrap itself. My childhood was a lie! Now it’s time to turn this into a diy holiday food gift.

Find some colored tissue paper and measure out a piece long and wide enough to wrap the Saran-wrapped butter a few times. Twist the ends of the tissue paper, throw a bow on it, put it in the freezer to harden it up, and call it a day. The butter will be waiting for you to give to all your friends this holiday season! All I needed was one bite of it, and I decided that the perfect person to give this gift of holiday butter to was actually myself.

My daughter says that since I was born in the late 1900s, that makes me officially old enough to say, “The TikToks.” You should try different gift wrapping techniques for a stick of homemade butter. • Whip It by Devo (Whip that butter real good!) • You Betta Werk by RuPaul (You butter work!) • Party in the U.

S.A. by Miley Cyrus (Butter in the U.

S.A.!) • Burnin’ for You by Blue Oyster Cult (Churnin’ for You!) • Turn Down for What by Lil Jon & DJ Snake (Churn Down for What!).