.berry better butter.

with my niece spending some summer time vacation days at our home, i wanted her to feel welcome and comfortable. part of that included having food that she likes and so i got the scoop on her favorites before she arrived. for breakfast, she was simple- eggs or toast. simple is not necessarily my specialty, but granting someone's wishes is.

on her second morning here, i waited a fair amount of teenage time before i started getting breakfast going. i figured breakfast was best served before noon. with toast on my mind, a better butter was my subtle way of making something a little jazzed up for her. the timing on pioneerwoman.com was perfect for me to find her berry butter recipes with raspberries and blueberries. however, we had strawberries in the fridge that my niece had already picked out and that is what i'd use.

getting one stick of butter out of the refrigerator, i allowed it to make its way to room temperature before creaming it with the whisk attachment in the blender. while it was mixing its way to softness, i finely chopped two very red strawberries. if i were going to make more than just one stick, i'd use more than just two strawberries.

once the butter was smooth and fluffy, i changed out the attachment on the mixer to the paddle and added the strawberries to the bowl.

stirring it until all the butter picked up a slightly pink hue only took a couple of minutes. at this point, i wanted to spread it on something, but knew i had to wait.

next, i laid out a small sheet of aluminum foil with a small sheet of plastic wrap on top of it. right in the center of my bed of wraps, i scooped out all the berry butter.

as best i could, i used the plastic wrap to form the butter into a cylinder. we've all worked with plastic wrap before where it sticks to itself and is impossible to morph back into a normal sheet. so, i had to be careful here. i had the foil to help encourage the plastic wrap to go where it belonged.

with the butter in a cylinder, i tightened the plastic and foil around it. to make sure it was nice and tight, i twisted both ends of the aluminum around like a baked potato going on the grill. this little contraption went in the freezer to make sure the butter forms an actual log of berry goodness.

while my butter waited half of an hour in the freezer, i started the most complicated stage of this entire process. this is definitely not for beginners.
place two pieces of bread into a toaster. verify that it is plugged in. push down the lever to toast the bread. you may want to check your settings to make sure it is not too light or too dark. wait until the bread pops up into a transformed pair of toast. breathe a sigh of relief if you made it through this challenge.

once i waited thirty minutes, i pulled the butter out of the freezer. if you make your own, use it like it's going out of style. it stores in the refrigerator like your plain ol' yellow butter. i knocked on our guest bedroom door to wake up my niece and i don't think she was too upset when she saw the delicious butter atop her toast. we even had it the next morning and waffles and it was wonderful.

try it with your favorite berry and you will be glad you did.