Brandy Butter

1 stick butter
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons brandy

Cream the butter and sugar together and then stir in the brandy. Chill it long enough to let it harden up before serving.

It's great as a spread atop Christmas pudding, but it's just about as great on any other bread-based goodies you want.

Homestyle Butter

1 pint heavy whipping cream

Churn the cream until the butter in it coagulates and separates from the buttermilk. Scoop the butter (that is, the coagulated cream), out of the buttermilk and put it in a bowl. Press the butter against the side of the bowl with a spatula to squeeze out the extra buttermilk, which you then should pour back into the rest of the buttermilk. The more you squeeze the butter, the harder and less creamy it will get. If you're going to store it for a while, squeeze it very well and then rinse it (see below). If you're going to eat it all up right away, you probably don't want to squeeze it so much. Either way, you'll want to eat it up fairly quickly, since it's got no preservatives to embalm it.

If you need to rinse the butter, then after you've squeezed out all the buttermilk that's easy to squeeze, pour in a little cold water (around ¼ cup) and stir it up into the butter. It won't mix in, but it will mix with any remaining buttermilk. Squeeze out the water and pour it off, noting its color. If the water you've squeezed out wasn't as clear as it was when you put it in, then repeat the rinse. If it was just as clear coming out as going in, then your butter is well-rinsed, and should last longer: a week, maybe two, instead of just overnight.

Maple Syrup

1 cup water
2 cups sugar
½ teaspoon maple flavoring

Bring the water to a boil and dissolve the sugar into it. Once the sugar is dissolved, add the maple flavoring. Enjoy!