Bulking out butter?

JS of Auckland asks, “I remember hearing of an old WW2 recipe to bulk out butter to make it go further. Does anyone have a copy of that recipe to share? It would be very handy as the price of butter now is getting out of hand.”

To find the answer we consulted an expert, Lillian, who is frugality personified. Lillian was an adult during WWII and knows every trick in the book when it comes to turning a penny’s worth of food in a pound’s worth of goodness.

Lillian’s reply to J.S. is that there were quite a few ways of making butter go further by adding water, milk, and even cornflour. These days, the simplest way is to “combine warm water and butter in equal parts by putting the butter into a mixer on low speed and slowly adding warm water until thoroughly mixed and smooth. Store it in the usual way – it will get as firm as regular butter.”