Slowly does it
Jan and Steve Dolan have taken their time setting up a business which makes butter using age-old methods. Denise Irvine spreads the word.
Cambridge couple Jan and Steve Dolan take things slowly in their pursuit of better butter, and their work is an excellent example of the old saying “good things take time”.
The Dolans make flavoured butters for their fledgling Bellefield Butter Co business, using traditional methods of slow-ripening and handworking to achieve beautifully creamy-rich results.
“It’s butter the way it used to be made,” says Steve, recalling the holidays of his childhood when he stayed with relatives on a farm in Ireland and his Auntie Chrissie used to hand-churn the butter for the family table.
The Dolans operate out of a commercial kitchen – a squeaky-clean converted shipping container – adjacent to their home. It took them 18 months of research, learning, and compliance navigation to get under way. They launched in September and now sell their butters at weekend farmers’ markets in Cambridge and Hamilton.
Their labour-intensive manufacturing cycle starts with cream bought from a supplier in north Waikato. They add an imported European starter culture (widely used in France) that converts sugars in the cream to lactic acid for an extra tangy depth of flavour. The cream sits for 24 hours to allow the culture to take and is then refrigerated and left to ripen for more than a week.
Jan says the culture enriches and enhances the product. “You can taste the difference.”
When ripening is complete, the cream is batchchurned in a commercial mixer. The resulting butter is washed and strained then Steve works it by hand, removing the last of the buttermilk and adding salt and fresh flavourings.
Jan hand-rolls it into Bellefield’s 100g buttery logs, with six styles to choose from: sea salt; chill and lime; pōhutukawa smoked; roasted garlic; manuka honey; and maple. They also sell thick and tasty cultured buttermilk, a by-product of the buttermaking process.
Jan and Steve didn’t start out to be artisan butter makers. The Liverpool couple emigrated to New Zealand 10-and-a-half years ago and have raised their two children in Cambridge. “We’re Kiwis with funny accents,” says Jan.
She previously worked in adult education and Steve was a telecommunications engineer. They were both made redundant in the past year and the butter business was sparked by Steve reading about an outfit making flavoured butters in Yorkshire.
They saw an opportunity to do something similar and named their company Bellefield (beautiful field) in honour of their much-loved Everton Football Club’s original training ground in Liverpool. They think the title is a good fit with the Waikato’s green dairy land.
Jan and Steve say they’re starting small, working the markets and making contacts with restaurants and food retailers now interested in their product. “We’re tiny,” says Steve, “but we didn’t want to over-commit. We can grow from here.”
A few tips on getting the best out of Bellefield Butter: Jan says the chilli and lime is their top seller and she recommends it as a great way to tart up your toast or a plate of scrambled eggs.
Steve says maple butter is excellent with homemade buttermilk pancakes, and the sea salt version is good with scones and jam. Manuka honey butter makes a perfect marriage with asparagus (see recipe); roasted garlic is well-matched with barbecued steak, and the pōhutukawa smoked with fish.
“We use it with just about everything,” says Steve, as we spread creamy sea salt butter on a crunchy fig and walnut sourdough loaf, and savour each mouthful.
Bellfield’s 100g packs are $8.50 at the markets and have a recommended shelf-life of about three weeks. “It’s usually gone well before then,” says Jan.