Comprehending Butter

Butter has always fascinated all for its malleability and richness as also the way it transforms a dish, making it exotic from the simple. Most of us at home use plain salted or sometimes unsalted butter for baking purposes, but Chefs have access to all kinds of magical options when it comes to butter.

Salted V/s Unsalted

Most recipes in professional books would specify the usage of salted or unsalted butter and most professionals would agree that when it is not specified, it is best and safest to adhere to the unsalted version. And where the recipe says salted and you have only unsalted, then you add salt to the dry ingredients and often it is ¼ tsp of salt for 1 stick of butter recipe.

In baking, salted butter would not do what is required of butter in baking – to add flavour, control leavening and provide the richness of taste. Salt in butter also adds as a preservative, thereby increasing its shelf life. Yet, the inherent sweetness of butter is masked by salt.

Unsalted butter has a short shelf life and if not used the right way, it is best to freeze it. Then the shelf life increases by six months and it needs to be defrosted in refrigerator before use.

Flavoured Butter

Some festive items would be incomplete without the addition of flavoured butter on the side. And then came the five star hotels with their bread basket and fancy butters. Initially they used to be just chilled fancy swirls of ordinary butter but slowly these were changed to include fancy flavours in the butter, ranging from herbs to chillies and sometimes exotic additions like truffles and cherries etc.