When I refer to we, I’m talking United Kingdom and Ireland. These Isles with gloomy dark winters and wet summers may not be beach holiday destinations but they are great for pasturelands with grazing cows…there is a benefit for putting up with lousy weather; great dairy. If you have only lived in these parts you have no idea how lucky you are when it comes to great dairy produce. Take it from someone who’s still traumatised by long life milk and Maizena custard (cornstarsch) from their childhood.
Monica asked if I recommended good butter after posting Gregoire’s Light Scones last year, and most recently Max Franosch also asked recommendations for good butter. Generally the standard here is good, but like having a decent bottle of wine and then tasting wine which is outstanding I’ve tasted two butters in restaurants which were logged at the back of my mind. The first was at The Fat Duck 9 years ago, and more recently last year at Pollen Street Social.
Am I slightly odd for remembering the butter? When I rang Pollen Street Social today to ask where their butter was from the girl on the phone laughed out loud. After she stopped laughing she admitted she was also a butter devotee. Maybe it’s because my dairy-intolerant stomach bans me from daily use when I do indulge in some I tend to scrutinise it.
Why Champion French Butter?
A foodie pet hate of mine is being in a non-French restaurant/cafe in England and seeing pointed out on the menu the butter on my table is French. Why? We have excellently produced butter here as we have cheese, why single out French butter, it’s not better than ours…this is where Bikerboy looks at me saying “ours? have we conveniently stopped being Portuguese today?” Ahh…that’s what happens with dual nationalities.
There is a technical reason why French butter is better for pastry making, their fat content sitting between 82-85% makes it easier to handle with laminated doughs. On eating however good butter is more than just fat percentages, it’s all about the milk and how it’s been handled. What cows eat really matter.
Styles of Butter
Two general styles of butter making, sweet cream butter produced traditionally in North America and over here, or cultured cream butter favoured by the rest of Europe.
The cultured cream butter method harks back to the olden days if you like, pre-refrigeration, letting the milk sour slightly producing lactic acid bacteria, giving the butter a tangy flavour as you would expect. How this butter is now produced it varies, for example it can have the culture added to it after being churned but before refrigeration. McGee points out the flavour compound diacetyl (a byproduct of fermentation) heightens the butter flavour.
The widespread use of sweet cream butter was possible once refrigeration was available, it’s the simple act of churning fresh cream. If you’ve never made fresh butter, do it, with an electric whisk takes no effort, it’s fun and kids love doing it. Here’s how to make your own in Gloria’s blog, and as you can see from her post a great by-product of making butter is buttermilk which she uses in her scone recipe. You could also make soda bread, find a recipe in Louise’s blog here, or in Misk’s blog here.
Above and below were butters I picked out in my local Waitrose last year when experimenting with Gregoire’s Light Scone recipe here.
The colour of the butter will be the result of what the cows feed on, although according to my US text books the colour Annatto can be added.
I don’t know if it’s the case over here, is it?
Bread & Butter
I think of butter similar to a good loaf, a good loaf is the result of quality wheat, how it’s processed by the miller and the skill of the baker.
The quality of butter comes down to what the cow feeds on and the skill of the butter-maker. How the milk is cooled and the intensity its churned at determining the initial grains of butter, is the craftsmanship part. Butter also ages, light and air are its enemy breaking fat molecules down making it rancid. The fresher the better.
Cows fed on lots of grass will produce softer butter and those fed on hay and grains produced harder butters. Cows milk in the summer will produce softer butters than winter’s milk.
Between Christmas and New Year I bought the two butters above, Rodda’s Cornish butter and Glenilen Farm butter in John Lewis on Oxford Street, London. I spotted them because of the labels “Handmade” and “Classic churned”. I’m still a sucker for marketing phrases.
The Glenilen butter is a good butter but like the ones I bought last year, there wasn’t a distinctive character about it which made my brain cells store as a “must remember this butter”.
Rodda’s Cornish Butter
Out of the two, the one that stood out was Rodda’s Cornish butter, and the reason being because it has that clotted cream taste. Its distinctive taste reminded me straight away of clotted cream and clotted cream ice-cream, that full fat round richness. When I rang up the company today to ask about it, I was told the cream they use in their butter is the same cream used for clotted cream.
When I rang Waitrose to find out availability of Rodda’s butter across other branches I was informed they’ve stopped buying it in all together. Fortunately the girl at Rodda informed me it’s now being sold through Tesco.
Abernethy Northern Irish Butter
While I was tweeting about Rodda and Glenilen butter, Jane at Chocolate Orange Soup blog pointed out a butter I should try, a Northern Irish butter Abernethy. Owner Allison offered to send some in the post, which arrived 3 days later than she was expecting but to no detriment of the butter. Checking out their Abernethy site here, seeing they had won The Great Taste Awards 2011, my expectations of great butter were amplified.
I can tell you this butter lived up to expectations. The only way to describe its strong flavour is to say it tastes of mild cheese. It has a wonderful powerful fragrance alongside the expected creaminess of good butter. I’ve asked Allison if she sells direct but they don’t currently. That’s rather unfair I feel since those outside Northern Ireland should taste it…so Allison if you’re reading this, bring it over here!
Netherend Farm Butter
By the way, the butter I had at Pollen Street Social which stuck in my mind as outstanding was from here Netherend Farm in Gloucestershire, which if you notice is the one Gloria mentions in her butter post. It’s an incredibly creamy butter, sweet tasting, morish, and if you see from their site they supply to all sorts of good hotels and restaurants and sell it through Waitrose.
These 3 butters I tasted stood out for me. There will be plenty of other butters out there equally good or more suited to your taste, find them, my aim is to highlight what wonderful craftsmanship there is on these green pastures of ’ours’.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Lovely post. My favourite food is good bread with thick butter. I don’t often buy these specialty butters, but I’m going to try one or two of the ones you’ve suggested, and see if I can taste the difference.
Very helpful overview of butter. It made me think of my childhood when one of the seasonal items that adults eagerly anticipated was Normandy Butter. The few times that I had it, such enthusiasm seemed wholly unaccountable – like adults enjoying ghastly, brined olives from tins that had been opened two years earlier.
So, for a very long time, I rarely ate or cooked with butter. So many of the ‘branded’ butters tasted like axle grease. Then a while ago, I attended a hugely enjoyable short course on soft cheese making and we made butter as well. Predictably enough, I then realised that I had only been eating indifferent butter – and the problem with the Normandy Butter of my youth was that it had always been rancid by the time it got to me.
Thank you for your exploration of butter and such intriguing attention to detail.
I’m going to watch for Rodda’s butter and buy it if possible. I wanted to make butter myself but P says he’d rather I didn’t because it’ll remind him of hard times in the 50s when butter wasn’t really butter” he said it’s something about the scent of it. I might have to wait until he’s away on business to try making a batch.
Shame I can’t send you some of the Irish one Louise, but would love to know what you think of the ones you try.
Hi EM – we share bad experience of dairy from our childhood!
If you do try the Rodda let me know what you thought of it Misk.
This post is fascinating. I know when I’ve tasted a really good butter, but I’m probably not quite as picky as I should be when buying stuff to spread on my bread…which is madness really when I think how carefully I make or select the bread!
I adore good butter, and try to buy British first, or from Ireland or France. No need to import butter from the opposite face of the earth when we have, as you say, great dairy at home. MmmM!
LL – you have hit the nail on the head there with regards to bread..wish I had thought of it when writing the post. You’re so right we home bakers take so much care and attention at producing the perfect loaf and then are quite happy to slab mass produced tasteless butter on it!
I’m from Northern Ireland and we are fussy about our butter. Even a lot of supermarket butters are excellent compared to the equivalent here in England. I admit I’m probably more concerned about the butter than the bread when I’m shopping, but I plan to pay equal interest to both this year…
Welcome Miss South – once you embark on good bread you’ll be hooked, and especially with good butter!
I just read this about butter yesterday, when looking for information on making good croissants. There is a book called “On Food and Cooking” that goes through (mostly) all of the scientific reasons food does what it does. Then I did a search and found your blog! I can’t wait to read more.. and hopefully find some french butter somewhere near me
We do have great butter indeed! I must admit I’ve had a phase recently of purchasing Brittany butter (with sea salt flakes no less…), but the taste of some of the UKs’ finer butters is really delicious; you’ve just gently nudged me back to patriotism!
Hi Kavey, Kailey & Rachael – three cheers for home produced butter!
Wonderful post, Az. I don’t eat much butter day to day, so when I DO eat butter, I want it to be damn good. Whenever I bake a loaf of bread, it’s sort of a ritual of mine to have the first slice with butter: the true test! The other test: will I be able to get any of these at my local Waitrose / Tesco? Will find out this weekend. Alas, the one I’d most like to try is Abernethy Northern Irish Butter. I guess I will just have to go to Ireland.
I’ll email you the details of the Irish one Monica.