The story
Black Butter Making Festival in St Lawrence
A National Trust for Jersey heritage event recreating le nier beurre, or black butter, a traditional apple-and-cider preserve once made communally overnight. Volunteers peel apples, then simmer them with cider, sugar and spices in a copper basin over an open fire, stirring continuously with a wooden paddle called a rabot until the mixture is jarred up on the final market day.
Apples get peeled for two straight days at The Elms, the National Trust for Jersey's headquarters farmhouse, when the annual Black Butter Making Festival recreates a preserve-making tradition known in Jerriais as le nier beurre.