It was several years ago that I started thinking more carefully about the butter I was using in my cooking and baking. I switched to unsalted for baking and tried to get my hands on locally produced, organic butter for toast topping and sauce-finishing. These days I am positively addicted to the cultured butter from Vermont Butter and Cheese (not particularly local, but the best I've found around Philly).
Miss Ginsu has taken butter-tasting to a level far above my own measly explorations. Last week, she headed out on her bike and bought nine varieties of premium and imported butters, all unsalted (at least that was her intent, she did end up with salted Kerrygold butter unintentionally). Working methodically through all of them, she rated them on a graded scale. The winner of her test was Elle & Vire, an imported French butter.
What's your favorite butter?
[via Serious Eats]
May is National BBQ Month and National Hamburger Month
Cupcakes, not for dessert (unless beef is your idea of a treat)
Because eating French Fries in the car is so tough
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-07-2008 @ 10:24PM
mmklein said...
Best butter on this continent: http://www.animalfarmvt.com/
I'm very fortunate to be able to buy this butter at $12/lb at my local coop. It's well worth it!
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4-08-2008 @ 1:21AM
doodoolemonque said...
We have been using the butter available from the local Amish store here in Western North Carolina and love it. It does cost a a little more, but not $12/lb. Perhaps you might want to use some of each pound to butter some bread (no need to toast it) and send it along to the local soup kitchen. Perhaps a donation of 4 pounds of supermarket butter to the local food bank for each pound of specialty butter you buy. You may do so already, but I'm too busy choking on the $12/lb butter, right now. Sorry. I thought only defense contractors got butter at that price.
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4-08-2008 @ 1:30AM
Kitt said...
Hmm, that's an interesting experiment, but I don't think I consume enough butter plain to make it worthwhile. (I don't even use it in cooking much, since in many cases olive oil works just as well.)
I do remember a friend offering me some bread smeared with Plugra and expecting me to go into raptures over it. I guess it was OK! But I couldn't really tell.
Maybe I should try this cultured butter and see how I like it.
Food for thought, thanks.
Kitt
http://www.kittalog.com
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4-08-2008 @ 5:47AM
animated said...
I'm a little biased, as this company has been in my wife's family for generations, but Stirling Creamery has fantastic butter, and supplies butter balls across Canada and the US. But my favourite is their whey butter. So. Much Flavour.
http://www.stirlingcreamery.com/
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4-08-2008 @ 6:42AM
rm said...
I have a lovely Jersey cow named Maude,and I've been experimenting with making butter. I found a Swedish live culture called fil mjolk, which I've been using to culture the cream before making butter, and, even after years of buying excellent imported and Amish butters, I can honestly say I've never tasted anything like it. My family and I stood around the table last week eating butter and trying to describe the flavor. It's delicate, with a savory aftertaste...it's just exquisite.
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4-08-2008 @ 9:14PM
kate said...
We've always made our own butter, from milk we get from some friends who have a little free-range herd. We skim off the cream and put it in a quart jar then shake and shake (for about half an hour - good workout!) until the fat molecules stick together, then put it in a bowl and press out the air and milk. It's perfect unsalted, or with herbs mixed in, or some sea salt, or really any herbs or spices.
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4-09-2008 @ 7:03AM
audiodrumm said...
I enjoy Chimay butter (both salted and unsalted) from Chimay, Belgium. It's an abbey beer from the Scourmont abbey in the south of the country. It's absolutely delicious. Chimay is also the name of a great trappist beer as well as a cheese, all from the same abbey.
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