Butter Live!

"Is that all there is to it?" asked one of the school children from St. Ailbe's School, Tipperary.  "Yes, that's it! You've just made butter" I replied, knowing well the feeling of surprise and satisfaction that comes after you churn fresh white cream into yellow butter for the first time.

And so it was for those of us who took part in last night's Butter Live! online event to celebrate GIY Ireland week. As an experiment in food broadcasting, it involved the viewers in exactly the way I had hoped: together, from around Ireland and abroad, we turned liquid cream into a block of delicious butter.


It was exciting to read articles about Butter Live! from other parts of the world. NPR wrote about it here, Seattle twitter @tablefare wrote about it here and Kristin Leyden, a farmer in Massachusetts wrote about it here.


You can watch Butter Live! below. Please go straight to 10 minutes in for the start. If you make butter, do share your photographs on twitter #butterlive or by email homegrown@ireland.com


My thanks to Imen McDonnell, Alan Kingston, Sarah Fleming and Brochan Cocoman (the dairy farmer who supplied the raw cream).  


[A radio feature on butter I did last year for RTE, which includes an interview with Imen and also Tom Butler of Cuinneog, a brand of butter from Mayo, can be heard here]