More Better Butter: Advice from Elle Magazine

Flipping through a French Elle magazine this afternoon, here’s what I found:  An article about butter!  It says that recently, “les food addicts” have been chasing after good butter (sound familiar?) and it declares The Five Commandments for Perfecting Your Butter Attitude.

According to Elle magazine, we should:

1. Search out artisanal butter

There is a buttermaker in Brittany named Jean-Yves Bordier who has become as famous for his butter as Pierre Herme has become for his pastries.  Bordier’s butter is made with organic cream, cultured, churned in small teak churns and shaped by hand between wood paddles.  With good reason, Elle tells its readers to look for his butter or to order it from the source.  (Fromagerie Jean-Yves Bordier, 9 rue de l’Orme, 35400 Saint-Malo; Tel: 02-99-40-88-79.)

Elle also mentions Echire as a premium-quality artisanal butter.

2. Don’t compromise on quality

Elle’s credo : It’s better to have good butter less often than to have average butter everyday.

3. Respect your butter

Take care of your butter when you get it home by keeping it well wrapped or in a butterkeeper (butter picks up every odor in the refrigerator); take it out of the fridge 10 minutes before you want to use it, so that its aromas can develop and its texture can soften; and, ideally, have the butter “raw” or stir it into a dish at the last minute.

4. Try flavored butters

Once again, Elle suggests Bordier butters, which, in addition to being made sweet and salted, can also be found with seaweed (sooooooo good with oysters!) and smoked salt.  For those of us who can’t buy such butters at the corner market, I guess we can read this to mean that we should try making our own seasoned or compound butters.

5. Broaden your butter horizons

Elle encourages its readers to go beyond cow-milk butters and, for example, to try butters made from sheep or goat milk. 

So we’ve come full-circle – have a butter tasting!

Comments

[Dorie]

Alison, I'm so sorry I didn't get back to you sooner about the salt in the cookies -- this is what happens when you don't do things immediately (and these days I'm not doing much immediately). When I say "salt" in a recipe and don't specify the kind, it means "fine" salt. As I mention in the book's Glossary, I use fine-grain sea salt. Kosher salt is chunkier than fine sea salt, so if you measure out 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt for the recipe, you're going to get less salt than you'd get if you measured out an equal amount of fine sea salt. Also - unfortunatley, I can't check this because I'm in Paris and don't have kosher salt in the kitchen - I think kosher salt is less salty than sea salt, but my memory could certainly be faulty here.

I don't think you have to keep table salt in the house for baking, just, as you said, up the kosher salt a little.

[Blame It on Paris]

What I love about the French! Elle publishes articles about butter. :)

I have heard lots about Bordier's butters. I am longing to find some to try.

[Naomi]

Hi Dorie! I saw your interview on Ari's site and I loved it! How cool is it that you have your own blog now? I can't wait to see your new book. I'm going to see if I can get a copy of "Baking" this afternoon, those muffins Ari made convinced me - I need that book!

[Alison]

Your brown sugar-pecan shortbread are just a few hours out of my oven and there are only a handful left, they were wonderful. I used land-o-lakes and could defintely tell the difference between that and the less expensive butter I usually use. The taste of the butter was just that, butter, not the usual greasy taste I dislike with shortbread. But, after I finished a cookie I was wondering where the salt had gone. Do you test recipes with table salt, kosher or something else? I strictly use kosher, but should I keep table salt around for baking shortbread or just up the quantity of kosher?

[gilly]

Hi Dorie!

Like Christianne, I'm fairly new to your site, but I really enjoy your reading your posts. I also really enjoyed your interview on Ari's site - I thought her questions were unique, and I loved your answers.

Regarding flavoured butters - we have next to no variety available beyond salted, unsalted, and cultured. This means one has to be creative at home instead. Some of my favourite savoury combos are garlic & sea-salt butter and pesto butter, while my sweet favourites are maple-syrup butter and brown sugar & cinnamon butter.

[Dorie]

Christianne -- welcome! The blog is new -- I'm just feeling my way around the blogosphere -- but I hope you'll visit often. I also hope you'll taste a few butters and find something you really like.

Lesley -- I can barely imagine the joy of baking with Bordier butter everyday. Actually, I've never baked with it, I've only treated it like a little treasure and spread it over bread. But it's interesting, when I serve it in Paris (where serving butter with bread at a meal is not the norm), my French friends notice immediately that it's something special. You're right -- the French don't know how lucky the are!

Brilynn and Kelly-Jane -- I'm glad you liked the interview on Ari's site: www.bakingandbooks.com. I thought she asked super-interesting questions and I had a lot of fun answering them.

[Kelly-Jane]

Hi Dorie

I read Ari's interview too. It was a great interview from both sides :)

I'm really happy to hear a new book is in the works too!

KJxx

[Brilynn]

Hi Dorie!
I just read your interview with Ari over on Baking with Books and I'm thrilled to hear that you're working on a new book. I can't wait to see it come out.
As for the butter, unfortunately it's hard to find any sort of variety where I live. I'll have to go looking next time I'm in the city.

[Lesley Chesterman]

How great to see a mention of Mr. Bordier!
I visited his exquisite cheese shop in St-Malo three years ago and left with a kilo of his beurre demi-sel, which turned out to be quite salty.
Later that week I was visiting my brother-in-law who has a patisserie/ boulangerie near Rennes. After lunch a truck pulled up and my sister-in-law said "Oh, the butter is here." I looked up and saw Bordier's truck in front of the shop. "You use THAT butter for pastries?" I asked. "Yes, for everything" she answered, oblivious to her famous supplier. To her he was just the butter man.
Oh, the French, they don't know how lucky they are!

[Christianne]

Hi Dorie:

I'm new to your site and am really enjoying it! To be honest, I've never really thought much about the butter I use other than is it salted or not. I'll definitely have to give it a lot more consideration on my next trip to the shop! Thanks!