RUNNER-UP

Cultured butter – miso flavour, Bellefield Ltd

WHEN CAMBRIDGE couple Steve and Jan Dolan were effectively made redundant in the same week, and then Jan was diagnosed with a brain tumour, they took the opportunity to get their idea for making artisan butters off the ground. “Jan thought it might be less stressful than her previous job as an adult-education teacher,” says Steve. If only they had known. Some 18 months of compliance later, they were set to churn their first batch.

Since 2017, the Bellefield Butter Co has operated from a converted shipping container in the Dolans’ garden. Amidst the stainless-steel benches and clinkclank of machinery, they batch-churn cultured butter – both the regular salted variety and experimental flavours. That includes the miso-flavoured product which was named runner up in the Cuisine Artisan Awards 2019.

Steve’s love of the real deal in butter started in his childhood. “My dad is Irish and we’d often visit my Aunty Chrissie on the farm. I can still see her churning butter at the kitchen counter,” he says.

Cultured butter contains live bacteria which make it fuller flavoured. “My favourite way to enjoy the miso butter is to put two discs of it over a nice piece of white fish and bake it in a foil parcel in the oven,” says Steve. But he’s also been adventurous creating toffee made with miso butter that Jan has put on the ‘more please’ request list.

Three years after misfortune prompted the Dolans’ change in direction, the butter business is only getting better. bellefield.co.nz