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A showcase for best butter

FlashJack

By FlashJack
in Cooking

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FlashJack

FlashJack

Posted
Posted

Hello all,

 

a friend recently gave me some excellent cultured butter, 500g each of salted and unsalted.

 

I'm inclined to think the highest use of good butter is on great toasted bread. Just toast and butter. Some applied while the toast is hot so it soaks in, a generous amount reapplied when the toast has cooled a little so the butter retains its integrity.

 

I also like whipped butter on pancakes, something I make rarely because my tastes run much more to savoury than sweet.

 

I'd like to make my friend something that uses my beautiful expensive butter to great effect.

 

What dish/dishes show off butter? Should I use it in a pastry? I've never tackled croissants and am reluctant to gamble on that first up.

 

Jack

 

  • Like 2
MokaPot

MokaPot

Posted
Posted

That butter sounds great and I'd eat it on bread, not even toasted bread.

 

Does your friend like sweets & desserts? A simple cake with a buttercream frosting? I wouldn't even add any flavors to the buttercream (other than vanilla).

  • Like 2
FlashJack

FlashJack

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
35 minutes ago, MokaPot said:

A simple cake with a buttercream frosting?

Now there's one I'd not have thought of. Thank you. Great idea.

  • Like 1
shain

shain

Posted
Posted

Pastina with butter is pretty nice to really highlight the butter. So are baked potatoes.

 

Once you had enough of "raw" butter on plain starch and are ready to let it cook some and have competing flavors, there many more options:

With scrambled eggs or omelette.

Various types of dumplings (e.g. gnocchi, spinachknodel, ravioli) fried in butter.

Brioche.

  • Like 1

~ Shai N.

jimb0

jimb0

Posted
Posted

i'm of the opinion that the best butter is served as it is; using it as an ingredient inevitably tends to compress the distinctions between great butter and just okay butter. a good buttercream isn't a bad idea, though; especially french. croissants are an option. perhaps infusing other flavours into it.

  • Like 1
FlashJack

FlashJack

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
On 4/3/2021 at 5:26 AM, jimb0 said:

croissants are an option

Thanks all for your suggestions. To which I am going to add whipped butter on buckwheat pancakes.

 

Jimb0, I'll gather my courage and give Julia Child's croissants a go.

  • Like 2
heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, FlashJack said:

Thanks all for your suggestions. To which I am going to add whipped butter on buckwheat pancakes.

 

Jimb0, I'll gather my courage and give Julia Child's croissants a go.

Her instructions are detailed and result good - one step at a time = happy eater

  • Like 1
Margaret Pilgrim

Margaret Pilgrim

Posted
Posted (edited)

Good butter is one of my budget splurges.   I use a LOT of better in cooking.    From butter based sauces to rounding out many pasta and meat sauces with a hefty splat of good butter.   Always in a pureed soup.  I particularly love Irish and Finnish butters.   Frenc are good but I think overrated.

Edited by Margaret Pilgrim (log)
  • Like 1

eGullet member #80.

jimb0

jimb0

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, FlashJack said:

Thanks all for your suggestions. To which I am going to add whipped butter on buckwheat pancakes.

 

Jimb0, I'll gather my courage and give Julia Child's croissants a go.

 

good man!! i'm not a croissant expert but if i can give one piece of advice it's to give them plenty of rest in between working the dough by putting it back in the fridge under plastic wrap or similar. that's helped me a lot.

 

tbh though i always have an eye out for getting a dough sheeter on the cheap. then it's gonna be croissants all day erry day

  • Like 3
Katie Meadow

Katie Meadow

Posted
Posted

If given a choice I would opt for a gift of a plain stick of great butter over something already baked. That way I could buy a fresh baguette and some paper thin slices of French jambon and make a lunch with all three. And the next day I could slather the butter on baguette toast. And make a rich buttery omelet. And if you made cornbread I would be very happy if a stick of butter came with it. However, if you showed up at my door with fresh warm perfect croissants I might be pretty excited. Naturally you will be baking them in your wood-fired oven, right?

 

Perhaps a stick of butter doesn't sound like a gift to many people, but I'm one those people who like  special ingredients in an original state. Many people give gifts of "something you wouldn't make or buy for yourself." The reason I don't make it or buy it for myself is most likely because I don't like it that much. I have relatives that always gave us a bottle of "flavored olive oil" as a gift. Just a plain bottle of good Italian olive oil would be a lot more useful than lemon or rosemary olive oil. I'm not fond of rosemary and fresh lemons are easy to add to whatever. Oh yeah, I know what an ingrate I am.

  • Like 5
blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted

I would also be delighted to receive a wonderful butter with a great loaf of bread, cornbread or the like. The nice thing about butter, assuming it’s wrapped well to protect it from picking up odors, is that it keeps in the freezer for a long time. 
I like to keep some of those small bars of Bordier butter in the freezer so I can make up a little basket with bread and butter to go along with jars of marmalade or jam that I’ve made.  Always very well received. 

  • Like 4
Katie Meadow

Katie Meadow

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

I would also be delighted to receive a wonderful butter with a great loaf of bread, cornbread or the like. The nice thing about butter, assuming it’s wrapped well to protect it from picking up odors, is that it keeps in the freezer for a long time. 
I like to keep some of those small bars of Bordier butter in the freezer so I can make up a little basket with bread and butter to go along with jars of marmalade or jam that I’ve made.  Always very well received. 

Stop by one day soon with a stick of that butter after you've baked bread. We can swap home made marmalade!

  • Like 2
jmacnaughtan

jmacnaughtan

Posted
Posted

Excellent topic. Butter is very much a super-food :)

 

In the morning, a fresh baguette with good salted butter is excellent paired with either soft-boiled eggs or honeycomb. Bread-salt-butter-honey in particular is outstanding, and I've been trying to come up with a decent dessert built around that for years.

 

I've also wanted to host a bread, butter and champagne party for some time. This is a trinity that works very well.

 

The closest I got was a vernissage in 2019, in which I smashed together a kilo and a half of Bordier salted butter into a pat and let people have at it.

 

Motte.thumb.jpg.3a662d9c8808a750118f0580f53936f6.jpg

 

 

  • Like 6
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jmacnaughtan

jmacnaughtan

Posted
Posted
On 4/5/2021 at 2:23 AM, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Frenc are good but I think overrated.

 

I've heard that you can only get Président over there, and if it's true you have my condolences. It is not the benchmark.

Margaret Pilgrim

Margaret Pilgrim

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:

 

I've heard that you can only get Président over there, and if it's true you have my condolences. It is not the benchmark.

Depending on where you live (in the US), there is access to many brands of French butter available.   My reference was based on Bordier and Beillevaire we usually buy in France.  Both are quite decent but not revelatory.  The singularly excellent butter we've enjoyed in France is Le Ponclet, however almost all of its production goes to restaurants.

  • Like 1

eGullet member #80.

blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:

 

I've heard that you can only get Président over there, and if it's true you have my condolences. It is not the benchmark.

 

It's true there's not much of a selection of French butter in the average US grocery store but speciality shops offer more.  The one I shop at has Bordier (about a dozen flavors/sizes), Echire, Isigny Ste Mère, Le Gall, and Sèvre & Belle.  

  • Like 1
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jmacnaughtan

jmacnaughtan

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Depending on where you live (in the US), there is access to many brands of French butter available.   My reference was based on Bordier and Beillevaire we usually buy in France.  Both are quite decent but not revelatory.  The singularly excellent butter we've enjoyed in France is Le Ponclet, however almost all of its production goes to restaurants.

 

I've checked out Le Ponclet's website, and they do sell their butter retail... for 60€/kg. I've almost certainly tried it in restaurants, though, but I never ask the name.

 

Bordier seems to be a good balance of availability and quality, although Monoprix has been doing an excellent unpasteurised butter for some time too, for less money.

  • Like 1
  • 1 year later...
curls

curls

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Thanks @curls - now I have to try to source some crazy artisanal French butter here in the Great White North....oy!

 

 

Ha! That's what I was thinking too. Not sure if it is available in the DC area but I can mail order it from Murray's. 

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