What should be in butter?
What should be in butter?
I looked at my butter today, the ingredients are:
- butter oil
- milk powder
What the hell is butter oil? I tried googling it, but I get VERY contradictory results, nothing from a reputable source I could find.
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Just start making your own. It's actually really really easy.
Required equipment:
Big mixing bowl
Electric mixerRequired ingredients:
Extra thick double cream/whipping creamOptional ingredients:
Salt
Garlic
Wild garlic
Insert herb hereProcess:
- place cream in bowl.
- whip until it separates, folding the chunks back in and stop when there's only butter and
- decant newly made buttermilk.
- wash butter to remove buttermilk by filling bowl part way with cold water and just squeezing the butter. Switch water and wash until no visible milkyness comes out of the butter.
- add extras by folding or blending it through the butter.
- store any butter you're not likely to use within a few days in the freezer, I like to portion it out into 100g bits, so I know I won't be wasting any of it.
There, now you'll never have to wonder what your butter is made from again!
Salt is not an optional ingredient.
Unsalted butter is a crime against cuisine.
Thank you for self-reporting, criminal. Please stand by, the butter police will arrive shortly.
I would like to say that while this is clearly made in jest, unsalted butter is a requirement for some really great recipes, and also some people are on say a low sodium diet. I put it as optional, because I'm a mature person and don't yuck other people's yum.
I use unsalted butter almost exclusively so I can more easily control the salt content of my dishes
Why do people even combine butter and salt? Why not keep them separate, I think every kitchen I've ever seen has salt in it
Traditionally, salted butter was way saltier than our modern salted butter and it was a way to make it last longer before we had refrigeration and pasteurisation
When using butter as a spread it's nice to have some salt incorporated. A salt shaker is very easy to overdo on something light like toast or pancakes.
Salted butter is a condiment.
Unsalted butter is an ingredient.
Do you eat butter straight? When you cook with butter you can add salt as needed, it's much harder to remove salt that's already there.
Unsalted butter should be used when cooking specifically because you can control the salt level yourself directly by... Adding salt. It's easy to add salt, but very difficult to rebalance a dish when something is too salty.
Salted butter should be used when you're adding it to something that's already done, like when buttering toast.
Or as some people want to do, whipping cream, sugar and whip. Then get distracted and come back to sweet butter and buttermilk.
One way to get there