I tend to only use fancy butter when butter is the star of the show. They add something more than just luscious fattiness to a dish. A good fancy butter, in my opinion, reminds you that it came from somewhere specific. You’re aware that it came from an animal that ate grass and stood in the sunlight. Like wine, it has a terroir.
– my recipes
I have a couple/few favorites 😍 like – And important video at bottom of this post about butter – important video at bottom of post 👌⤵️
The Devon Cream Company Double Devon Cream Butter – British Butter
If you gave this butter to me as a present, I would send you a very earnest thank you note. Not only is it wrapped in gold with a scripted label, it’s also complexly flavored and just plain incredible. It’s the best butter if you’re willing to shell out a bit more cash, since it costs almost twice as much as many others. But it’s worth it if you want to sit down to a meal of bread or radishes and butter. It’s so yellow with a ton of character—it has a meaty, umami quality.
Slightly salted. Our happy cows graze on lush grass to provide the richest cream – simply churned in the traditional way and lightly salted to produce the best tasting English butter. This butter is made with fresh double cream using milk from the herds of farmhouse cooperatives. Product of England.
A British butter which costs nearly £100 a pop has been voted one of the finest foods in the world.
Cultured butter
Slightly sour and intensely buttery, this ode to the butter of yore is best appreciated on bread – but if your budget permits, don’t stop there. Cakes and pastry will benefit from its rich, complex flavour, and British cultured butter is increasingly being favoured by bakeries for use in their croissants and other patisserie.
Arguably the most ‘real’ of all the real butters, cultured butter is what butter would have been had you been alive a hundred years ago. ‘Originally the milk would have been left out in big vats so the cream came naturally come to the top – a process which would take a number of days. In this time, the cream would naturally ferment,’ says Grant Harrington of Ampersand Dairy. ‘The bacteria would grow during that time, which slightly sours the cream.’ That cultured cream, churned, would create a distinctly buttery flavour and texture. Yet with the industrialisation of cheese and butter production, the cream could be separated by machines and churned immediately. ‘The whole process is so fast, so there’s no time to develop any flavour,’ explains Grant. ‘There’s no acidity and no live cultures.’ It is churned, sterilised, homogenised cream.
Hence Ampersand, Grant’s offering to the butter business. His cultured butter is beloved amongst Michelin-starred chefs across the UK. ‘It was when I was working as a chef in Sweden that I learnt about cultured butter. The butter there blew my mind, it was so tasty – and I learnt that they made it using lactic bacteria, the traditional way.’ The lactic acid produced by the bacteria prolonged the longevity of the butter through harsh Swedish winters. Armed with the recipe, Grant returned to Oxfordshire and started collecting the finest local Jersey milk, separating the cream and adding a strain of lactobacillus which he knew would create an intensely buttery flavour. ‘The cultured cream is aged and, once it reaches maturity, churned.’ During this process, the bacteria eat the sugars and carbohydrates in the cream, producing the lactic acids which enhance the taste and increase the butter’s shelf life (‘over a month,’ says Grant). The butter is finished when it is hand-kneaded into moulds with Himalayan pink salt.
Then I love –
THE YELLOW GOLD OF ISIGNY SAINTE-MÈRE
AOC/AOP French certified butters:
Butter has different forms, textures, colours and flavours.
Melted, mixed, kneaded, moulded, soft, creamy, firm, hot or cold, it can accompany all dishes and preparations and take on all shapes…
It also reminds us of the crackers or toast of our childhood.
There is SO MUCH to read about their butter that I recommend checking their website ➡️ isigny ste mere ⬅️
AOP for me 😍
Again, check their website – https://www.isigny-ste-mere.com/en/products/our-butters/
Of course, there’s Beppino Occelli butter
If you can get that MUAAH! 😚😍 read about that one, too, at the link ⤴️
These are a few of some butter that have me spoiled now 😉 💕
Obviously, the list could go on 🥰
I wanted to point out my reason for mentioning some specific butters in my blog posts.
Yes! 😆🤪
I’m still weighing these two out, trying to make up my mind on a favorite; 🤔 It’s all good❗️😋 And now I have Rodolphe Le Meunier – Le Meunier’s Beurres de Baratte – a creamy French beurre. Now this is a game changer‼️ The others are truly GOOD! I’d be HAPPY to get any of the above mentions as a gift, Amen 🙏 But this Le Meunier’s Beurres de Baratte 😱 this butter is dangerous! “The best butter in the world.”
“Made with a wooden butter churn and molded by hand, this butter is the best of Beurre de Baratte (the French for “churned butter”). This traditional production method creates a butter that’s deep yellow in color, slightly crumbly in texture, and packed with rich, creamy flavor. Try spreading some Rodolphe Salted Butter on a fresh baguette and add a drizzle of Apiaries Raw Orange Blossom Honey.”
or New Zealand’s Lewis Road Creamery, Lurpak, Smjör , Delitia Butter of Parma – Italy❗️ Lescure is another fabulous French option that’s full of history and deep complexity of flavor. The brand’s products are part of the AOP Charentes-Poitou (one of the country’s Protected Designation of Origin certifications) and features a range of butter products offered in 80-84% butterfat.
One of the biggest names in butter, France’s Échiré is a favorite of chefs and savvy home cooks alike. It’s also among the oldest brands on this list and has been around for more than 120 years.
Échiré prides itself on using the ancient practice of churning butter in wooden churns, and it is one of the last remaining dairies to continue this tradition. Like Lescure, it’s also part of the AOP Charentes-Poitou and received the Prix d’Excellence Française in 2015. For me, I want at least 82%;
Those and more! But I’m taking my time 😉 it’s a nice journey.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are some good store bought butters with good uses; like dedicated home cooks and frozen dinner enthusiasts alike seem to know about kerrygold, which has almost a cult-like following and it’s deserved.
There’s Danish Creamery, Vermont’s Ploughgate Creamery, Vermont’s Cultured Butter, Plugrá, Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Butter, Horizon Organic, Some good stuff. Also, evidently there’s people that really like Land O’ Lakes, although my daughter and I do NOT, it changed, I grew up with it, but for some reason her & I both pick up on a taste we DO NOT LIKE. I don’t know what’s up with that, maybe it’s just us? Never noticed it before🤷♀️🤫🤨 That ends this with it coming down to preference, whatever you like best 🥰 I just happened to love GOOD cultured butter from healthy cows, in healthy environments, and made special. Some people…it’s wines and grapes 🍾 🍇 Some it’s beef… to the point of paying for Wagyu beef. Those, like my granddaughter, where it’s seafood. I’m a dairy person apparently. 🚜 🐄🧀🧈🥛🍶 🌄 🌱 🌅 😋 Simple joys in life.
I hope you have your joys too (outside of what really matters .. FAITH, FAMILY, & FOOD); life is short.
Just2note 