How to Make Strawberry Butter

This is the yummiest post I’ll do all year April. Well until the Green Strawberry Granita recipe I’ll be posting soon. Yes, green strawberries. Don’t worry though – today’s post uses delicious red ripe strawberries which are coming into season right now. So what do you do with a lot of strawberries like we wound up with after going strawberry picking? One great use is to make strawberry butter.  Here’s the issue: Every time we have overnight guests I fret about what to make for breakfast. I’m not a morning person but I want to provide an amazing experience for our friends and family that might be here. Plus I have to spend the days leading up to the visit cleaning so that the usual “oh I didn’t know that rotting grape was stuck on the ceiling” gift of parenting won’t happen.  It’s a busy time and I wear myself out trying to be Martha Stewart.  So what’s a girl to do when she’s bone tired from cleaning and hiding the random strange stains but still want to provide an amazing breakfast? Strawberry butter. Why? Because you make it in advance, throw it in the fridge and it’s done. Serve it that morning with toast and an assortment of yogurt and you’re halfway to famous. Simple. Easy. And you don’t have to worry about not getting up before your in-laws who are in fact, the earliest risers on earth.  Confession: I used store bought butter.  The whole point is that it’s supposed to be easy! So I used Kerry Gold Butter, which is a really great butter that I highly recommend and you can get a great deal on it at Costco.  Start with 1/3 cup of sliced really ripe strawberries.  Lightly sprinkle with sugar and put them to the side for at least 10 minutes.  When you come back a few minutes later you’ll notice that the sugar has pulled a lot of the juices out of the berries.  Throw the berries along with 8 tablespoons of softened, high quality butter into a mixer. Now mix it for several minutes. The strawberries will break down and start melding with the butter. If it doesn’t look like it’s blending together, don’t worry.. it will.  Once it looks well blended and the strawberries are broken down to the size that you would like, turn off the mixer and transfer into a small canning jar.  If you don’t have a mixer you can dice your strawberries into finer pieces and then blend by hand. You’re done!  I told you it was easy. Right now I’m really wishing I had some bread in the house.  The strawberry butter is calling my name.