a trio of flavored butters for your table
something simple, something sweet, and something savory
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This week I technically have 3½ recipes to share! Buckle up, we’re making 3 different varieties of butter 💛🧈
Making butter from scratch is incredibly easy, and it’s actually pretty fun. If you want a good workout, you can make your butter in a mason jar, but for ease and speed I prefer to use my stand mixer.
Standard butter is made from just one ingredient: heavy cream. These recipes take that one step further and we “culture” the butter, adding live cultures from yogurt. This adds depth of flavor and a bit of tang.
Cultured Butter
Ingredients:
1 quart heavy cream (4 cups)
3 tablespoons plain unsweetened yogurt with active cultures
Instructions:
Two days before you’d like to make your butter, pour your yogurt and cream together and stir well. Refrigerate for 48 hours. This gives the cream time to culture.
To a mixer, add your cream and yogurt mixture. With a whisk attachment, whip on medium-high speed until the mixture has thickened to the texture of whipped cream.
Reduce the speed to medium-low and continue whipping until the butter beings to separate from the buttermilk. It will look chunky and curdled. Reduce speed to low, whipping until the butter becomes a solid mass on the whisk attachment.
At this stage, pour off your buttermilk and save it for buttermilk biscuits.
Transfer your butter to a clean mixing bowl and begin squeezing out as much remaining liquid as you can. Rinse with cold water and continue to squeeze, repeating this step about 3 times. This will prolong the life of your butter in the fridge.
Add salt if this is your butter’s final form. If adding other flavorings, leave unsalted for now.
On sheets of wax paper, shape butter into bricks of your desired size, wrap, and depending on your intended use, store in the fridge or freezer.
Yield: about 1 pound of butter.
After I make this big ole batch of butter, I split it into thirds and make the following recipes. For the sake of measuring, 1⁄3 pound will be about a stick and a half of butter.
🧂 Salted Butter
My favorite butter before making my own was an imported French butter called Isigny Ste Mere. It’s a “demi-sel” variety, with “gros grains” meaning slightly salted with large grain coarse salt. In our house, we refer to this as our “fancy butter.” Here’s how to make your own salted butter that’s just as fancy:
Ingredients:
1⁄3 pound of unsalted butter (room temp)
¼ teaspoon fine table or sea salt
large grain, kosher, or flake salt, to taste.
Instructions:
Add your unsalted butter to a bowl. Sprinkle the fine salt over the butter and mix well (I typically just use a silicon spatula for this)
Once well mixed, sprinkle the larger grain salt over the butter and fold in gently, adding a little on top for presentation.
Store in an air-tight container in the fridge.
I find the amount of salt to make things “salty enough” varies from person to person. If you find your butter is not salty enough, add more salt. If it’s too salty, add more butter!
🍯 Cinnamon Honey Butter
If you’ve ever been to Texas Roadhouse you’ve been acquainted with honey butter, and you know it’s pretty hard to beat, especially on warm fluffy rolls or biscuits!
Ingredients:
1⁄3 pound of unsalted butter (room temp)
3 tablespoons honey
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon (Vietnamese cinnamon is my favorite!)
a pinch of salt
Instructions:
In a stand mixer, whip your honey and butter together until combined.
Add cinnamon and a pinch of salt.
Store in an air-tight container in the fridge.
🐟 Anchovy Butter
Anchovy haters, I need you to listen for a minute. This butter is for you, yes, even you! You might be scared away by the name, but I promise this is delicious! Serve it with fresh crusty bread or melted over pasta with parmesan and a ton of cracked pepper. That’s amore baby!
Ingredients:
1⁄3 pound of unsalted butter (room temp)
1 tablespoon anchovy paste
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cloves garlic (grated)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Instructions:
Grate your garlic. I’d recommend starting with only 2 cloves, as the garlic can get very strong in this butter! (I say that as someone who typically doubles the garlic in recipes)
In a food processor, combine all ingredients. Pulse until well mixed, it should turn a light orange color.
Store in an air-tight container in the fridge.
Depending on your preferences, you may choose to add more anchovy paste for a deeper flavor, more garlic to kick it up a notch, or whatever you fancy. I love seeing new variations!
And that’s all, folks! I hope you enjoy!
Much love,
jess✨
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