#1 Back to top 
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Butter made from scratch involves whipping heavy cream until
it separate into butter and buttermilk components. Before we
begin, gather the ingredients: heavy whipping cream, an electric mixer,
salt, and caffeine powder.
There's really not much to it. In fact, if you want to make caffeinated
butter the really easy way, skip this recipe and just add caffeine powder to a tub of softened
butter and mix thoroughly.
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#2 Back to top
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The caffeine powder I use in this recipe is from Novus Nutraceuticals.
Caffeine is methylxanthine. The quality and grade of caffeine can make
a large difference in its potency and efficacy. All
Novus Nutraceuticals caffeine is pharmaceutical grade anhydrous caffeine.
Included in the bottle is a 100mg measuring spoon approximately equal
to 1/16 of a teaspoon.
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#3 Back to top
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Measure out 2 cups of heavy whipping cream and, for best
results, let it reach room temperature.
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#4 Back to top
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Pour the cream into a LARGE glass bowl. You really need a giant bowl to contains all the splashing that will
take place over the next half hour. Oh, didn't I mention? You'll need about 30 minutes
to churn this cream into butter. In these photos I'm timing down from 30 minutes.
Twenty-nine minutes to go!
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#5 Back to top
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Twenty-five minutes to go! No changes yet. Just getting warmed up.
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#6 Back to top
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Twenty-two minutes to go. Cream is starting to get a little creamier.
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#7 Back to top
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Fast forward to 15 minutes to go. The buttermilk is starting to separate from the butter.
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#8 Back to top
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Ten minutes to go and not a whole lot has changed.
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#9 Back to top
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Eight minutes to go and the butter actually begins to turn yellow.
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#10 Back to top
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Four minutes left and you can almost see your creation taking shape.
The buttermilk is starting to splatter all over your kitchen.
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#11 Back to top
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It really was getting messy so I grabbed a makeshift splatter-guard without breaking stride.
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#12 Back to top
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Done! Blow the smoke off your mixer. After an insipid 30 minutes, you've successfully made butter!
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#13 Back to top
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Now strain off the buttermilk and save for another recipe, or feed to your cat.
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#14 Back to top
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Separate as much liquid from the solid as possible.
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#15 Back to top
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Squeeze the buttermilk from the solid ball of butter as if you were kneading bread.
It's important to get as much liquid out as possible. Buttermilk left in the butter
will accelerate spoiling.
Rinse with cold water.
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#16 Back to top
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With as much liquid out of the butter as possible (or as much as you have patience for) you
can now begin to add salt. I added one full teaspoon by mixing 1/4 teaspoon at a time until
it tasted like butter I normally buy at the store.
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#17 Back to top
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Now carefully add the caffeine. One-eight of a teaspoon adds 200mg of caffeine to the batch of butter in this example.
The recipe makes slightly more than one stick of butter. I reasoned that I get about 12 pats
of butter from each stick of butter. One "pat" being what I would spread onto a single piece of toast.
So, 200mg/12pats = 16-2/3mg per pat.
Your slice of toast in the morning will have about 1/4 to 1/3 the caffeine content of a cup of coffee.
Use caution when measuring and adding the crystalline caffeine. Remember that caffeine is a drug and should be used in moderation.
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#18 Back to top
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Now mix the salt and caffeine thoroughly into the butter ball. When you think you're done
mixing, continue to mix. Adding such a small amount of dry ingredients to a sticky ball of fat
is really impractical, but it's critical to the consistency of the caffeinated butter. You don't want
to be surprised by a wad of unmixed caffeine on your morning rye.
That's it. You're done. You can now sample the fruits (fats) of your labor.
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