What is "cultured" butter?
Cultured butter, also known as European-style butter, is a treat. It has a slightly tangy, nutty taste & a creamier texture than American-style butter.
Overall, making butter is a pretty simple process: take cream & churn, churn, churn until it solidfies, forming butter. Sometimes, salt is added. Making cultured butter takes a bit longer because it involves an additional step -- fermentation. After the cream is pasteurized, bacterial cultures are added, in a very similar method to how yogurt is made. The cream then ferments overnight, thickening slightly, before it is then churned into butter. This fermentation step adds a fuller, more acidic, more pronounced butter flavor.
When to use cultured butter?
Cultured butter can be used in place of American-style butter. But it is more expensive. The best time to splurge & opt for cultured butter is when you want the butter flavor to really shine. Think biscuits, shortbread, pie crust, muffins, or a pat on your morning toast. Using cultured butter makes one wonder, "Why are these muffins so amazing!?!?!" with each bite. Just a little something extra but noticeable. Something people can't put their finger on, but your secret weapon to being known as having the best muffins ever!
Cultured butter also makes a wonderful, unique gift for your favorite baker or butter lover.
The Market at 70 North carries 16 oz logs of cultured butter by Vermont Creamery, both unsalted & lightly salted. The Creamery describes their butter's flavor as having notes of buttermilk & hazelnuts.
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