CATEGORY

Domestic Butter

2007 CHEFSBEST® AWARD FOR BEST TASTE WINNER

Land O Lakes

What Makes a Great Butter?

Butter wears many hats in the kitchen. It’s a creamy spread and an essential ingredient for sauces, frying and baking. Whether you spread it on toast or corn, or use it in soup and cake recipes, you’ll want plenty of unsalted and salted butter in your refrigerator.

Our chefs define high-quality domestic butter as having a moderately shiny surface at room temperature. Though its yellow color will vary according to the diet of the animal it comes from, it should range from pale to bright.

Butter’s moderate aroma should have a somewhat high complexity that includes dairy, lactic, slightly tangy and grassy notes. Aroma off notes—including improper processing, packaging and storage notes—should not be detected. The aroma should also not reveal any souring.

Taste balance is achieved when moderate saltiness is the leading basic taste in salted butter, followed by low sweetness and minimal sourness. For unsalted butter, moderate sweetness should be the leading taste. Discernible sourness will balance the sweetness, and there should be no saltiness or bitterness.

Domestic butter’s moderately intense flavor should be more intense than the aroma, and its flavor character should be even more complex. Salted butter will have more flavor than unsalted butter, though its overall character may be simpler overall. For both butters, the aromatic notes—dairy, lactic, slight tang and grassiness—should flow through to the flavor. The more flavors detected, the higher the quality. As with the aroma, there should be no inappropriate off notes detracting from the overall flavor.

Domestic butter should have a dense body texture that is not soft like mayonnaise. The dissolve should have a medium length, with some weighty butterfat and flavor remaining on the palate after swallowing. Despite its high fat content, butter should not seem greasy in any way. 

When butter at room temperature is spread on white sandwich bread with a plastic knife, some resistance is expected. However, it should not rip the bread, nor should it spread or ooze across the bread by itself. The butter flavor should complement the bread flavor without being overwhelmed by it. When spread on warm toast, butter should melt easily, but it should not separate, soak too quickly into the toast or form pools on the top.

When high-quality unsalted butter is baked into a cookie recipe with sugar and flour, the cookies should break easily when bitten. They should also dissolve slowly and deliver dairy, lactic, grassy and slightly tangy flavors. In a butter’s overall quality, its performance as a baking ingredient is as important as its taste, texture and flavor.

Product Category Definition

The product judged was defined as domestic butter for the consumer market, not including European butter, organic butter, margarine sticks or spreads. This judging included both salted and unsalted domestic butter.

Also Judged:

Challenge