Carrot Butter

I made something that was new to me the other day when I had High Tea with my friends: Carrot Butter.  I'd seen it made by Chuck Hughes on his show, Chuck's Day Off, and thought it sounded interesting.  He served it over risotto, if I recall correctly.  Coincidentally he mentioned juicing your own carrots to use to make the butter and I had recently bought a juicer.  So I figured I would give this carrot butter thing a try and serve it as a topping for the scones with our Tea.

It was a very simple process.  You simply juice several fresh carrots, or pick up a bottle of carrot juice at the store.  I've found bottled carrot juice with the other fresh and organic juices near the produce section.  You have to reduce the carrot juice to a syrup consistency by gently simmering it in a saucepan.  It can take a while, depending on the amount of juice you have, maybe 45 minutes.  Reduce it however much you want - the longer it goes, the more concentrated the flavors are.

When it's reduced, you let it cool a bit, then slowly whisk in about half as much butter as carrot syrup.  Chuck melted the butter first, and he used the carrot butter warm and melty.  I wanted it to be spreadable, so I didn't want to let the butter melt all the way and separate.  So I used room temperature butter and made sure my syrup wasn't too hot before I whisked the butter in.  Then I poured it into a container, and let it cool in the fridge.  I was using salted butter, but if your butter is unsalted you'd probably want to add some salt.  I suppose it would be neat to add other seasonings as well, like curry or cayenne or cinnamon or something.  I might try that sometime.

We had the carrot butter with the savory cheese scones I made and they were great.  I also had it on toasted french bread later in the week.  It is really delicious!  It might seem a little out there, but actually it was kind of a nice way to add a little pizazz to such a common spread.  I vote thumbs up on the carrot butter.

Happy eating!