Hello!
Welcome to my first Roll with it Newsletter. I’m happy you found me!
Today we’re going to be talking all things butter because seriously is there anything better? Firstly, a quick 411 on the butter making process before getting stuck into some ultra flaky pie dough recipe testing.
Ok, let’s get going.
Cissy… xo
Butter is the basis of so many, if not all recipes in the pastry kitchen. It is in its own right bloody delicious! When a salty slab melts into your toast, there really is nothing like it. Sure, look, I know I’m preaching to the choir a little bit here, as this country produces world renowned butter. Yes, Kerrygold, the billion euro food brand taking America by storm. But I wanna get into the nitty gritty of why choosing the right butter is so important for your baking and how having a better understanding of it will help you become a better baker.
When you work in a bakery, butter becomes at the forefront of your mind pretty much every day, especially when working with viennoiserie. You go through kilos of the stuff, you even start to smell like it too! So, what really is butter?
In simple terms, butter is cream that is churned until it forms a solid lump. And what is cream? Well, it’s the fat that forms on the surface of milk when it is left to stand. It really is that simple of a miracle. However, there are many different types of butter; whipped, browned, European, American, cultured, uncultured, salted, unsalted, you name it, it does it! But before we get into these endless possibilities, let’s understand how it’s made.
How is it made?
Since it’s easy to make (as noted above) just by sloshing around cream until you get a butter block, it’s no surprise that the butter making process has been around since the earliest days of dairy farming. I’m talking ancient! Yet it’s not until the 19th century that we see this process perfected through the invention of refrigeration and mechanised cream separators. In this process the cream is firstly concentrated to around 40% fat before it is pasteurised.1 The cream is then cooled back down and is either left as ‘sweet cream’ or undergoes a culturing process. ‘Sweet cream’ is left unsoured and is mild in taste, whereas ‘cultured cream’ is inoculated with lactic acid bacteria, which gives it a tangy, complex, nutty flavour. The butter is then churned. During this agitation process the fat globules in the cream bounce off each other, getting damaged and forming little flecks of butter. As the churning continues these butter grains continue to collide until they form a solid mass. At the same time, the liquid fat (buttermilk) is pushed out. The butter is then washed to remove any excess liquid, then salted and sometimes dyed (we’ll get onto this in a sec) before being packaged.
Once packaged, the butter is typically around 80% fat, 15% water and 5% milk solids. In Europe the % of fat usually pushes the 82% mark compared with American style butters which are much lower in fat (hence why they love Kerrygold so much). This higher fat is preferable for baking and generally what you should look out for on the back of butter packaging. Having a lower water % lends to a softer, more rich in flavour butter with a slightly higher melting point, perfect for creating delicate, melt in your mouth pastries. Another thing to note is the colour and consistency of butter. Different hues, ranging from pale white to yellow, come from the carotene (photosynthetic pigments) found in the pasture that animals feed on. Animals can’t do anything with this and so it shows up in their milk and subsequently the butter. When cows get little fresh pasture (including the orange-hued carotene) their milk is distinctly paler, which leaves room for the manufacturer to add in colouring. However, most Irish butter is left untreated as most cows spend almost all of the year feeding on pasture, giving it its recognisable yellow hue.
Other variables that affect the butter include the breed of the cow and the processing but something I’ve found most important is the time of year. In the summer months the consistency of butter is primo! Soft, smooth and easy to work with. In the winter, when the cows do eventually move inside and onto dry feed, the butter is brittle and prone to breaking, which is a nightmare for laminating croissants! These changes reflected in the consistency of butter have encouraged farmers to freeze surplus milk from the summer months, so that the product remains of the best quality all year round. This even affects baristas, who similarly find it hard to work with winter milk as it is much harder to foam.
What does butter do in baking?
Let’s break this down into sections as there really are SO many variables at play here.
Flavour: Ok, this one is obvious. The high portion of fat provides a richer flavour on the tongue. The fat also acts as a vessel for carrying other flavour profiles from other ingredients, making the overall flavour of the dish more delicious.
Shortening: When fats coat flour they ‘shorten’ the gluten strands by getting in their way and so they are unable to create long networks. When you think of breads like sourdough compared with a brioche, you’ll visualise something crusty versus something soft. This is because sourdough is ‘lean’ and brioche is ‘enriched’ with butter, which creates that super tender texture. We’ll get onto this in more detail later on when we talk about flour.
Leavening: When you use butter in cakes you will ‘cream’ the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. This process traps air between the sugar and fat molecules. When the cake is baked this trapped air will expand and create a more voluminous product. Another example of this is puff pastry, which is when we repeatedly fold layers of butter and dough together (also called lamination). When the pastry is baked the water in the butter melts and turns to steam. This steam gets trapped by the gluten in the dough and is what causes it to rise and have flaky layers.
Temperature: Cold butter should be used when you’re making a flaky product, say scones, pie dough, biscuits etc. Room temp butter should be used when creaming. Melted butter can be used when you don’t need any sort of leavening but want to add more flavour. An example of this is when you compare creamed butter in cookie dough vs melted butter. The latter will result in a flatter, more chewy, crisp cookie as the melted fat cannot create the same air pockets.
Salted: In general, you should use unsalted butter when baking. Most salted butters vary in the % of salt incorporated so as the chef, we want to stay in control of this flavour.
Compound Butters: These are flavoured butters that are used as a flavour enhancer for meats, vegetables and in baked goods. Check out Thomas Straker’s Butter Series.
Clarified Butter: When butter is melted, water evaporates and the milk solids settle at the bottom of the pan, leaving behind pure butterfat, which is clarified butter. The reason for using this is it has a higher smoke point, making it perfect for frying or roasting. In baking, it is sometimes used because it has a better shelf life and is more consistent due to the absence of water.
Brown Butter: This is pretty much clarified butter but a step further. The butterfat becomes a caramel colour from the browning of the milk solids. It is nutty and toasty in flavour and smells like popcorn or cornflakes. One of the best smells ever IMO.
Let’s roll on to the next newsletter for the recipe…
Pasteurisation is a low heat treatment used to reduce harmful microorganisms in food, making them safer for human consumption as well as giving them a longer shelf life.