The Secret to This Butter Spread
The key to this butter spread is the use of unflavored gelatin and some evaporated milk. When all whipped together, it looks and tastes like whipped butter. There were some issues with this recipe, however. It doesn’t enable you to double all your butter—just the butter you serve at the table for toast, bread, and corn. This butter spread won’t be usable for frying or baking.

Knox Spread Recipe 1942

Another downside was the recipe size. If a single pound of butter cost you your entire ration of oil for the week, then you’d have none left over to cook with—unless you had enough people in your household to make this hack worthwhile and buy several pounds of butter at a time. For many families of the era, saving the equivalent of $7 was well worth the time and effort.

Emmy from the YouTube channel Emmymade tested this hack to see what it was like to make and eat this “stretched” butter. I won’t spoil the results of the experiment for you, but let’s just say that during the taste test, it performed far better than I would have guessed. See how to make this spread in the video below.