How to Find the Best Butter for the Job

Salted. Unsalted. Whipped. Cultured. "European." What if you just want to make some pie crust?
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Photo by Chelsea Kyle

There are pie crusts to be rolled, biscuits to be baked and turkey skin to be crisped, and none of it would work—or be half as delicious—without butter.

But would it be better with fancy butter? Alice Medrich can answer that. The baking expert and author recalls a cookbook tour stop where the hostess had thoughtfully baked cookies from Medrich's book. They were supposed to be cutout cookies, perfect for decorating.

"Well, her cookies had spread all over the place," Medrich said. "Finally, she admitted that because I was coming, she wanted to use the best of everything and had used a European-style butter."

This is not to knock the European stuff, because it is delicious and there are more options than ever for you to splurge on. But that doesn't mean it's the butter you should be buying all the time, for every task.

Fat matters

Butter must, by law, contain at least 80 percent butterfat. Remember this number because the level of fat and the corresponding moisture content will make a difference in your food, especially baked goods.

Butter breakdown

The main types in the dairy case are uncultured, cultured and European-style.

Uncultured or sweet cream butter, churned from pasteurized cream, is the supermarket standard.

Cultured butter is made from cream that's been fermented with so-called good bacteria, and it’s churned longer and more slowly, according to the American Butter Institute. What’s labeled European-style butter is made similarly—though not all European-style butters are cultured.

Both cultured and European-style butter have less water, more butterfat—from 82 to 87 percent—and a tangier, deeper flavor than mellow, sweet cream butter.

There are salted and unsalted versions of each. Salt adds flavor and also extends the shelf life.

Other types

"Light" butter has more water and about half the fat and calories than regular butter, but because it's made to be spreadable, it also contains preservatives and emulsifiers. Check the label to see what you're getting.

Whipped butter gets its light, spreadable texture from nitrogen whipped into it after churning.

USDA-certified organic butter comes from cows raised on organic, pesticide-free feed, without antibiotics or growth hormones.

Photo by Charles Masters, food styling by Kate Schmidt

Right place, right time

So, which butter to buy? It depends on what you’re doing with it, Medrich and the American Butter Institute agree.

Medrich said European-style butters make the most sense "where you're going to be able to appreciate that wonderful flavor — on your toast, your bagels, on vegetables."

In baking, it gets trickier. Because these fancier butters have a different fat-to-water ratio, they have the potential to throw off certain recipes. As Medrich knows firsthand, cookies might spread too thin or be greasy. Laminated dough, which depends on butter for flavor and texture, is one exception where a higher-fat variety would work better, she said.

As for salted versus unsalted, the latter is the better choice for baking so you can control the amount of salt. Salted butter is good as a "table butter," Medrich said, a simple adornment to bread or, say, radishes (and oh so French).

Light and whipped butters aren’t recommended for cooking or baking. Just don’t go there.

The best rule of thumb is to use whatever butter the recipe calls for. Otherwise, says Medrich, "You're opening yourself up to experimentation."

How to store butter

Keep it well wrapped and refrigerated—and not in the door compartment, where the temperature fluctuates. Butter will pick up odors that collect in your fridge, so if you don't use up a whole stick of butter in one shot, rewrap it in extra plastic.

Another Medrich tip: Store all those random nubbins and ends in a zippered plastic bag or other closed container.

According to the Butter Institute, unsalted butter has a two-week refrigerator shelf life and salted butter two months. The USDA is a bit more generous, giving a range of one to three months—and in fact, what you buy from the store has probably been in cold storage for longer than that.

Still, if you're not using up your butter quickly—those pie crusts aren't going to make themselves, you know—it's better from a freshness standpoint to store it in the freezer, where it’ll keep for up to nine months.