Are You Using the Right Butter in Your Baking?
Why is butter good for baking?
Butter plays many important roles in baking. Of course, it adds richness and delicious flavour to your baked goods. Beyond that, butter is also essential to the texture of a baked good. Working with room-temperature butter in a batter helps create a light, fluffy texture (like in cakes and cupcakes) as the butter melts and creates steamy air pockets during the baking process. Using melted butter in a recipe will result in a more moist crumb, which is why it’s used in denser recipes, like cookies. In croissants and other puff pastries, the layers of butter steam the pastry, making that light and fluffy layered texture we all love.
Does quality butter make a difference in baking?
High-quality butter has higher milk fat content, which gives you richer, flakier and more flavourful baked goods that tend to have better shape and structure. A lower-quality butter has more water content, which will produce, for example, a crisper, flatter cookie with more crunch. Using a higher quality butter will make for softer, chewier cookies with a taller shape.
When to use high-quality butter: For more flavourful and structured desserts.
The Perfect Type of Butter for Every Baked Good
Should you use salted or unsalted butter for baking?
Butter is naturally unsalted. Salt is added for flavour and preservative qualities. Most baking recipes tend to call for unsalted butter. This is because there is no standard salt content in butter, so it varies from brand to brand and country to country. In order to have more control over the amount of salt in a recipe (since baking is a delicate science!), unsalted butter is preferred and then the exact amount of salt is dictated by the recipe itself. This helps create more consistent results for home bakers replicating a recipe. In general, salted butter is preferred for cooking (or simply spreading) as it adds more flavour and has a longer shelf life, while unsalted butter is the go-to for baking.
When to use unsalted butter: For all baking recipes
Is European butter better for baking?
Have you ever wondered why baked goods just taste better in Europe? European butter is churned to have a higher milk fat content of at least 82%, while North American butter typically has around 80% milk fat. Gay Lea’s Bakers Gold surpasses even European standards with 84% milk fat, making this unsalted, culinary-grade option the ideal choice for the finest baked goods.
When to use European-grade butter: Baked goods that benefit from high cream fat content or where butter is a prominent flavour, like laminated doughs, puff pastries and croissants.
Is cultured butter good for baking?
Cultured butter, a more tangy and savoury variety of butter, is made by treating the cream with cultures (AKA pasteurized cream), allowing it to ferment, and then churning the butter. The process is not dissimilar to making wine, where the longer it ferments, the fuller the flavour. Savoury baked recipes can benefit from the tangier flavour of this butter that’s popular to Europe.
When to use cultured butter: Pancakes, biscuits and pound cakes.
Is sweet cream butter good for baking?
Sweet cream butter (AKA regular butter) is pasteurized from fresh cream. It’s the most typical butter found in North American grocery stores. It’s not necessarily sweet; its referred to that way in contrast to the tangier cultured butter that is popular in Europe. Nearly any baked good can be made with this variety of butter, including both sweet and savoury bakes.
When to use sweet cream butter: Cookies, brownies and squares, cakes and cupcakes.
Is grass-fed butter better for baking?
Regular butter is typically made from dairy sourced from cows fed a diet of grains, while grass-fed butter, as the name implies, is made from dairy from pasture-grazing cows. Grass-fed butter is typically more yellow in colour, flavourful, and can have additional health benefits (like a higher amount of Omega-3s). Try Gay Lea’s Grass-Fed Unsalted Butter to experience the rich, silky taste of this type of butter.
When to use grass-fed butter: Any recipe where you’d like to highlight a strong butter flavour like pie crusts, flavoured spreads and buttercream icing.
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FAQs
The best butter for your baked goods depends on what type of recipe you're whipping up. Unsalted, American-style butter works well in goods like cookies, pound cakes and pancakes that require the high-fat content of conventional butter and more flexibility with salt and flavor content.
Does it matter what butter you use in baking? ›
Unsalted butter gives you complete control of the overall flavor of your recipe. This is especially important in certain baked goods where the pure, sweet cream flavor of butter is key (butter cookies or pound cakes). As it pertains to cooking, unsalted butter lets the real, natural flavor of your foods come through.
Does the brand of butter make a difference in baking? ›
High-quality butter has higher milk fat content, which gives you richer, flakier and more flavourful baked goods that tend to have better shape and structure. A lower-quality butter has more water content, which will produce, for example, a crisper, flatter cookie with more crunch.
What's the best butter to use for baking? ›
The biggest difference in butter is the amount of salt. For baking purposes, the Test Kitchen recommends using unsalted butter so you can better control the amount of salt that goes into the recipe. Salted butter is best for serving at the table with bread or to flavor a dish, like mashed potatoes.
What butter do professional chefs use? ›
European butter has at least 82% fat while American butter only needs to reach the 80% threshold set by the USDA. That might not seem like a huge gap, but it's the key to what makes French butter a favorite among chefs and bakers. They know that more fat means less water which leads to more flavor.
What grade of butter is best for baking? ›
That means it's 18% water, at least 80% butterfat, and 1% to 2% milk solids. Why grade AA? It's the most buttery in flavor of all three grades: AA, A, and B. It has a light, fresh flavor and smooth texture — a perfect butter for baking and using at the table.
Is real butter better for baking? ›
But when you're baking, butter triumphs over margarine every time. For cakes, cookies, and pastries, butter (unsalted, that is) provides richer flavor. (It begins as cream, after all, and margarine is made from vegetable oil.) Butter's high fat content is also what gives baked goods their texture.
How can you tell if butter is high quality? ›
Check out the butterfat content
You've likely heard the phrase, "Fat is flavor." It's certainly true when it comes to butter. Butters with a higher level of butterfat tend to have a fuller, richer taste. They also have a softer, smoother texture, which make them ideal for spreading on toast.
Why is Land O' Lakes butter so good? ›
The Land o' Lakes butter was the lightest in color compared to the other butters but had a very pleasant, consistent, and mild taste that made it the best affordable everyday butter.
What is the best butter in the world? ›
Why Cabot Creamy Won Best Butter. At the World Championship, all entries are evaluated by a panel of skilled experts from around the world. They examine the taste, look, texture, saltiness, and more before awarding a score out of a possible 100 total points.
Challenge Butter has been a quality staple in kitchens since 1911. It's churned daily from two natural ingredients: the freshest 100% real pasteurized sweet cream and salt. That's it. Nothing artificial or synthetic.
Is country crock real butter? ›
Country Crock® is a spread made with oils from plants, whereas butter is made with milk or cream from cows. Country Crock® has less saturated fat per serving than dairy butter, but still has a delicious buttery taste. Country Crock® products also tend to be softer out of the fridge for easy spreading.
What kind of butter makes the best cookies? ›
Baking recipes typically call for unsalted butter because the amount of salt in salted butter varies depending on the brand – there is no “industry standard.” For example, if you use one brand of salted butter in a recipe, and we use another, our baked goods could end up tasting very different from one other.
Why does restaurant butter taste so much better? ›
It's brimming with butterfat
“I think restaurant butter often tastes better because it has a higher butterfat percentage,” says Luke Ilardo, head baker and owner of Doppio Pasticceria in Baltimore. “Most grocery stores offer 80% butterfat, but through our distributors, we can pretty easily find up to 86% butterfat.
What is the healthiest butter to use? ›
Grass-fed butter offers some health benefits to counteract the health risks it poses. It appears to have lower levels of saturated fats and more unsaturated fats than standard butter. This is because grass-fed butter is made from the milk of cows that are allowed to graze instead of being fed high-grain diets.
What happens if you use regular butter instead of unsalted butter in a recipe? ›
If you're baking and swapping in salted butter, the excess water from salted butter may make more of an impact. This is because extra water can have an effect on how gluten reacts and forms within dough. Consider slightly lessening any additional water the recipe may call for.
How to know when to use salted or unsalted butter? ›
It all comes down to what you're cooking. If you're sauteing vegetables, toasting bread, basting pork chops, scrambling eggs, or making a sauce, chances are you can use salted butter and that added sodium will also add some flavor enhancement to whatever you're making.
Can you substitute anything for butter in baking? ›
A good rule of thumb for this substitution: Replace about ¾ of the butter in a recipe with olive, canola, or vegetable oil (if the recipe calls for 1 cup butter, use ¾ cup oil). If the recipe calls for melted butter, though, you can swap the ingredients in equal amounts — there's no need to adjust your ratios.
How does butter affect baking? ›
Solid fats, like butter, can help baked goods rise. When you cream butter and sugar together, it creates an aerated mixture that provides lift before, during, and after baking. Butter also contains water, and when the water evaporates, it creates flakey layers critical to a pie crust or biscuit.
