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butter

  (bŭt'ər) pronunciation
n.
  1. A soft yellowish or whitish emulsion of butterfat, water, air, and sometimes salt, churned from milk or cream and processed for use in cooking and as a food.
  2. Any of various substances similar to butter, especially:
    1. A spread made from fruit, nuts, or other foods: apple butter.
    2. A vegetable fat having a nearly solid consistency at ordinary temperatures.
  3. Flattery.
tr.v., -tered, -ter·ing, -ters.

To put butter on or in.

phrasal verb:

butter up

  1. To praise or flatter excessively: You're always buttering up the boss.

[Middle English butere, from Old English, from Latin būt[ymacr]rum, from Greek boutūron : bous, cow + tūros, cheese.]


 
 

A food product made by churning cream. Butter is a water-in-fat emulsion. Cream is a fat-in-water emulsion. Cream consists of discrete fat globules, 6–16 micrometers in size, suspended in skim milk. Fat globules have a membrane or coating consisting of natural emulsifiers, lipoproteins, fat-soluble vitamins, cholesterol, and some other materials in lesser concentrations. The membrane provides stability for the globule and protects it from attack by lipase enzymes. See also Emulsion; Milk.

Butter manufacturers first pasteurize the cream. This heat treatment destroys bacteria, inactivates enzymes, and gives the cream a cooked or heated flavor. See also Pasteurization.

Following pasteurization, rapid cooling promotes fat crystals on the exterior and liquid fat on the interior of the fat globules. If the cream were churned after this step, the loss of fat to the buttermilk would be high. Thus, a tempering step is used in which the cream is held at about 50°F (10°C) to allow rearrangement of the fat crystals. Then, liquid fat is on the outside of the globules to allow rapid aggregation during churning.

Continuous churns produce as much as 15,000 lb (6800 kg) of butter per hour; they convert cream to butter in a few minutes. With the batch churn, about 45 min is needed to produce butter, and then at least 30 min to standardize the composition and get water dispersed in tiny droplets.

In the continuous churn the entering pasteurized and tempered cream is agitated vigorously by beater bars. This causes stripping of the fat globule membrane and aggregation of the fat globules into chunks 0.2–0.4 in. (0.5–1 cm) in diameter. At this point the emulsion has been inverted. The slope of the continuous churn allows the buttermilk to drain out the rear of the churn and the butter granules to continue through the churn barrel. The next flow-through position continues the kneading process to produce butter with finely dispersed droplets of moisture. If composition or color adjustment is required, it is done in this step; also, a salt solution is added to give the finished butter 1.2–1.5% salt. As the butter continues through the last step, more kneading is done with finer bars to complete the blending process and provide for fat crystallization that will yield optimum spreadability in the finished butter.

Butter in the package has a composition close to 80.0% milk fat, 1.2–1.5% salt, 17.5–17.8% water, and 1% milk solids. If butter is salt-free, the moisture and fat contents are adjusted to a slightly higher value to compensate.


 

Made from separated cream by churning (sweet cream butter); legally not less than 80% fat (and not more than 16% water) of which around 60% is saturated, a small proportion (3%) polyunsaturated, the rest being mono-unsaturated. Lactic butter is made by ripening the cream with a bacterial culture to produce lactic acid and increase the flavour (due to diacetyl). This is normally unsalted or up to 0.5% salt added. Sweet cream butter may be salted up to 2%. Butter supplies 72 kcal (300 kJ) per g; a 40-g portion (as spread on 4 slices of bread) is a rich source of vitamin A and contains 32 g of fat, of which two-thirds is saturated; supplies 300 kcal (1260 kJ).

Clarified butter is butter fat, prepared by heating butter and separating the fat from the water. It does not become rancid as rapidly as butter. Also known as ghee or ghrt (India) and samna (Egypt). Process or renovated butter has been melted and rechurned with the addition of milk, cream, or water. Drawn butter is melted butter used as a dressing for cooked vegetables. Devilled butter is mixed with lemon juice, cayenne and black pepper, and curry powder. Ravigote butter is creamed with chopped fresh aromatic herbs (tarragon, parsley, chives, chervil), usually served with grilled meat. Green butter is mixed with chopped herbs and other seasonings to produce a savoury spread. Black butter is browned by heating, then vinegar and seasonings are added.

 

Made by churning cream until it reaches a semisolid state, butter must by U.S. Law be at least 80 percent milk fat. The remaining 20 percent consists of water and milk solids. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grades butter quality based on flavor, body, texture, color and salt. Butter packages bear a shield surrounding the letter grade (and occasionally the numerical score equivalent) indicating the quality of the contents. The grades, beginning with the finest, are AA (93 score), A (92 score), B (90 score) and C (89 score). AA and A grades are those most commonly found at the retail level. Butter may be artificially colored (with natural annatto); it may also be salted or unsalted. Unsalted butter is usually labeled as such and contains absolutely no salt. It's sometimes erroneously referred to as "sweet" butter-a misnomer because any butter made with sweet instead of sour cream is sweet butter. Therefore, expect packages labeled "sweet cream butter" to contain salted butter. Unsalted butter is preferred by many for everyday eating and baking. Because it contains no salt (which acts as a preservative), it is more perishable than salted butter and therefore stored in the freezer section of some markets. Whipped butter has had air beaten into it, thereby increasing volume and creating a softer, more spreadable consistency when cold. It comes in salted and unsalted forms. Light or reduced-calorie butter has about half the fat of regular butter, possible through the addition of water, skim milk and gelatin. It shouldn't be substituted for regular butter or margarine in frying and baking. Storing butter: Because butter absorbs flavors like a sponge, it should be wrapped airtight for storage. Refrigerate regular butter for up to 1 month, unsalted butter for up to 2 weeks. Both can be frozen for up to 6 months. See also bercy (butter); beurre blanc; beurre manié; beurre noir; beurre noisette; butter substitutes; clarified butter; compound butter; fats and oils; garlic butter; ghee.

 

Solid emulsion of fat globules and water made by churning cream, used as a food. Presumably known since the advent of animal husbandry, butter has long been used as a cooking fat and as a spread. It was traditionally a farm product, but with the advent of the cream separator in the late 19th century it began to be mass-produced. It is a high-energy food, containing about 715 calories per 100 grams. It is high in butterfat (80 – 85%) and low in protein. Colouring is sometimes added to enhance its natural yellow colour (from carotene), and salt is often added.

For more information on butter, visit Britannica.com.

 
Architecture: butter


1. To smooth on plastic roofing cement or roofing adhesive with a trowel, as on a flashing.
2. To apply mortar as to a masonry unit, with a trowel.


 
dairy product obtained by churning the fat from milk until it solidifies. In most areas the milk of cows is the basis, but elsewhere that of goats, sheep, and mares has been used. Butter was known by 2000 B.C., although in ancient times it was used less as food than as an ointment, medicine, or illuminating oil. At first it was churned in skin pouches thrown back and forth or swung over the back of trotting horses. Later, various hand churns were devised, including rotating, swinging, and rocking containers operated by plungers. Butter-making on the farm consists of allowing the milk to cool in pans, letting the cream rise to the top, skimming the cream off, and letting it ripen by natural fermentation; it is then churned. Exclusively farm-made until about 1850, butter has become increasingly a factory product. The centrifugal cream separator, introduced into the United States c.1880, and a method devised in 1890 by Stephen Moulton Babcock to determine the butterfat content of milk and cream gave impetus to large-scale production. The application of chemistry and bacteriology facilitates the making of butter of uniform quality. The percentage of fat extraction and the time required for churning depend on the composition of the butterfat (see fats and oils); the temperature, acidity, richness, and viscosity of the cream; the speed and motion of the churn; and the size of the fat globules. Commercial butter usually contains from 80% to 85% milk fat, from 12% to 16% water, and about 2% salt. Sweet, or unsalted, butter is favored in Europe, but other markets prefer at least 2% salt. Renovated or process butter is made from rancid or inferior butter, melted and refined, then rechurned. Whey butter, made from cream separated from whey, is usually oily and of inferior quality. The natural color of butter, derived from the carotene in green fodder, ranges from pale yellow to deep gold. The European Union, with France, Germany, and the Netherlands leading the way, is the world's leading butter producer, followed by the republics of the former Soviet Union, India, and the United States. The EC, New Zealand, and the United States are the chief exporters; and the republics of the former Soviet Union and Great Britain are heavy importers. Wisconsin, California, and Minnesota are the leading producers in the United States, with an output of 1.3 billion pounds of butter in 1991. Clarified butter, butterfat with the milk solids removed, is useful in cooking and has good keeping qualities. It is made in quantity in Egypt and in India, where it is known as ghee. The dietary value of butter is due to its large proportion of easily digested animal fat and to its vitamin A and vitamin D content. Consumption of butter has dropped, however, because the high animal fat content has been identified as a contributor to obesity and heart disease.


 

Butter is made by churning milk fat. It has a solid, waxy texture and varies in color from almost white to deep yellow. It is mostly made from cow's milk, but water buffalo milk is used in the Indian subcontinent, yak milk in the Himalayas, and sheep milk in central Asia. Butter is an important food in North America, Europe, and western and central Asia but is of lesser importance in the rest of the world.

Butter Making

Until the late nineteenth century, butter was made by traditional small-scale methods. Milk was "set" in bowls until the cream rose and could be skimmed off. It was used fresh for sweet cream butter or "ripened" (soured) as the bacteria it contained converted the lactose (milk sugar) to lactic acid. Sometimes clotted (scalded) cream was used, and milk fat retrieved from whey after cheese making can also be used for making butter.

Once or twice a week the cream was churned in a standing churn with a plunger or in a barrel turned end-over-end. Eventually, granules of butter separated out, leaving buttermilk, which was drained off and used for drinking and baking. The butter was washed and worked (kneaded with a paddle) to get rid of excess liquid, then salted. Butter-making implements were wooden; they included bowls, butter paddles, and prints carved with motifs, such as swans or wheat ears, used to stamp finished pats.

In modern industrial manufacture, cream is separated by a centrifugal process to give a fat content of 30 to 38 percent. It is always pasteurized, and ripening is induced by adding a bacterial culture. The cream is churned at a temperature of 53 to 64°F (12 to 18°C). High-speed continuous churns were introduced after World War II. In these the cream is mixed by revolving blades, which induces granulation quickly. The butter granules are forced through a perforated plate and are worked mechanically. Salt and annatto (coloring) are added if desired. About twenty liters of milk are needed to make one kilogram of butter.

Physical Descriptions

The mechanism of butter production is not fully understood. The process inverts cream, an emulsion of minute fat globules dispersed in a liquid phase (water), to become butter, an emulsion in which minute drops of liquid are dispersed in a solid phase (fat). Churning first traps air in the cream, producing a foam. Continued agitation destabilizes the fat globules, disrupting the fine membranes that surround them and releasing naturally occurring emulsifiers such as lecithin. As agitation continues, the foam collapses, and the fat droplets are forced together in grains. Gradually they increase in size and become visible.

Finished butter has a complex structure of minute water droplets, air bubbles, and fat crystals distributed through amorphous fat. Proportions of solid and liquid fats present in butter vary. A lower churning temperature increases the proportion of crystalline fats, giving a harder, almost crumbly product. Higher temperatures produce a softer butter. Butter can also be whipped after churning to make it softer and easier to spread. Flavor is influenced by many factors (see sidebar).

Salt was originally added as a preservative. Butter made from unpasteurized milk is susceptible to bacterial spoilage. Even under modern conditions of hygiene, it is susceptible to oxidative rancidity. One way of extending shelf life is clarification, which includes two basic methods. One is to melt the butter gently and pour the fat off, discarding the milky residue. The second, used in India, is to simmer the butter until the water evaporates and the protein and milk sugar form a solid brown deposit. The fat, now with a nutty flavor, is strained off and stored as ghee, which keeps for months. Butter and ghee are significant in Indian cookery and Hindu religious ritual. In the Arab world samneh, a form of clarified butter, is also used for cookery. In Morocco it is mixed with herbs to make smen, a strongly flavored aged butter.

Nutrition

Nutritionally the composition of butter is roughly 80 percent fat (mostly saturated), 12 percent water, 2 to 3 percent nonfat milk solids (lactose, protein), and 2 percent added salt. It is the most concentrated of dairy products, containing about 740 kilocalories per 100 grams (210 kilocalories per ounce). Butter is a valuable source of vitamin A, plus it has a little vitamin D. It is also a source of dietary cholesterol. Vitamin content is higher in summer, when the cattle feed on fresh grass.

Nutritional debates over saturated fatty acids and cholesterol in relation to coronary heart disease have centered on butter. High fat consumption can be related to raised blood lipids, but the relationship of dietary cholesterol to blood cholesterol is less easy to demonstrate. Evidence for or against is seized in the debate between butter and margarine manufacturers over which is superior. The two groups have competed since margarine was invented in the 1870s. Their arguments were originally couched in terms of economics but subsequently obscured important health issues. In the United States butter consumption stands at about 500,000 metric tons per annum, as opposed to the European Union, which consumes almost 1.5 million tons with only about one-third more population than the United States. Much of the difference is probably due to preferential consumption of margarine for perceived health benefits by U.S. consumers.

Development of Production

Annual world production of butter (including ghee) rose from about 5.35 million metric tons in 1961 to about 7.551 million metric tons in 2001, during which time the ation doubled. By the twenty-first century, India was the world's largest butter and ghee producer. Its production increased fivefold between 1961 and 2002, whereas the country's population increased about 2.25 times. The European Union, an area in which butter has enormous importance in traditional eating habits, is the next most important producer, followed by the United States. New Zealand, with a small population, produces much butter for export, but production in Canada, formerly an important exporter, has fallen.

Table 1

Butter and ghee production
  Year
Butter and ghee production (mt)19611971198119911998199920002001
World 5,344,948 5,712,823 6,846,762 7,230,231 6,842,943 6,991,151 7,201,428 7,551,093
Latin America & Caribbean 129,415 155,307 206,855 191,692 204,587 209,485 210,840 219,718
Canada 165,107 134,309 116,915 101,059 90,600 92,060 92,060 92,060
European Union (15) 1,825,529 1,916,890 2,396,300 1,931,824 1,794,111 1,768,090 1,738,656 1,730,629
India 433,000 432,000 670,300 1,050,000 1,600,000 1,750,000 1,950,000 2,250,000
Japan 13,214 47,699 63,636 75,922 88,931 85,349 87,578 82,000
New Zealand 213,500 230,800 247,200 250,881 343,658 317,000 344,000 384,000
United States 696,629 520,268 557,095 621,500 529,800 578,350 578,350 578,350
© Copyright FAO 1990–1998

Table 2

Butter imports
  Year
Butter imports—qty (mt)1961197119811991199819992000
World 566,571 786,113 1,524,808 1,333,061 1,214,011 1,213,135 1,256,727
Latin America & Caribbean 15,092 61,809 71,324 87,551 65,778 70,056 71,217
European Union (15) 467,074 527,783 705,015 615,223 657,293 668,492 698,404
Canada 0 1,399 28 164 3,275 5,820 14,477
India 100 2,951 18,675 3,192 4,311 10,255 6,535
Japan 376 923 1,734 20,524 565 548 391
New Zealand 0 11 27 14 822 500 652
United States 390 320 938 2,381 40,096 29,468 22,160
© Copyright FAO 1990–1998

Table 3

Butter exports
  Year
Butter exports—qty (mt)1961197119811991199819992000
World 629,535 842,045 1,473,373 1,364,364 1,322,174 1,301,421 1,311,496
Latin America & Caribbean 14,799 8,612 10,088 8,126 17,380 25,654 24,249
European Union (15) 260,405 446,090 1,087,809 983,892 718,992 692,079 660,345
Canada 3 2,029 61 12,415 12,077 10,932 6,711
India 7 181 240 340 909 1,700 1,815
Japan 10 1,108 313 3 0 17 7
New Zealand 165,690 194,463 203,058 176,148 315,850 298,034 358,528
United States 2,597 43,006 54,207 32,006 9,024 3,536 8,906
© Copyright FAO 1990–1998

The origins of butter are unknown. One theory is that migrating nomads discovered that milk they carried with them became butter (much as American pioneers made butter by allowing the motion of the wagons to churn milk as they traveled). Butter has been known in Eurasia since ancient times, although the classical Greeks regarded it as barbarian food. Later friction arose over Lenten food prohibitions by the church in medieval Europe. Oil, a southern staple, was allowed, but butter, derived from animals, was forbidden, creating difficulties for northerners who had to buy expensive imported oil or pay a fine to use butter.

In northern and western Europe, butter was an integral part of the pastoral economy. It was churned from surplus summer milk and was stored in wooden barrels. Butter production was women's work and in many places, such as early modern England, provided an income for farmer's wives, hence the frequency of Butter Market as a street name in English towns. Certain areas developed dairy food production as a specialty. By 1750 the Low Countries exported butter and cheese to neighboring regions. In Ireland butter is the most esteemed of all dairy products. In the Middle Ages it was used to pay taxes and was buried in peat bogs for preservation. Archeologists still find the occasional cache of "bog butter," which made Irish oat cake and later potatoes palatable. Migrants from the Low Countries, Britain, and Ireland took their taste for butter to North America, where observers remarked on the lavish use of it in cookery and at the table.

Creamery production of butter, in which milk collected from a large number of farms was taken to a central point for processing, began in the late nineteenth century. It gave benefits in economies of scale and quality control but reduced regional nuances. An important step toward the process was the introduction of a mechanical cream separator by Gustav de Laval in Denmark in the 1870s. In 1881 Alanson Slaughter built a creamery in Orange County, New York, using the milk produced by 375 cows. By 1900 a creamery in Vermont used the milk from thirty thousand cows to make over ten tons of butter a day, and the production of country butter declined rapidly. Canada and New Zealand developed butter as an export commodity for the British market. Most butter produced in the developed world is made in creameries.

Butter is important in European food habits and cuisines derived from them. It is used as a spread for bread, crackers, and toast and to dress cooked vegetables and pasta. In baking it adds flavor and shortness to cakes and some pastries. Butter has a privileged position in French cookery, especially in sauces, such as beurre blanc, hollandaise, and béarnaise. It is not ideal for frying as the protein it contains burns at about 250°F (120°C), but clarified butter can be heated to about 375°F (190°C) and is often used for shallow frying fish. Butter or ghee also gives character to northern Indian food. For instance, a small amount heated with spices is added to pulse dishes for richness and to finish the cooking process. In Tibet butter is floated on bowls of tea, the residues of which are mixed with tsampa (barley flour) and eaten.

Flavor in Butter

Flavor in butter is influenced by many factors. Two basic types exist in European and North American tradition: sweet cream, churned from fresh cream, with a mild, creamy flavor and ripened; or lactic butter, made from soured cream, which should have a fuller, slightly nutty flavor. Salt butter can be of either type. Regional tastes in this vary widely. In Europe, Welsh butter is noted for being very salty, whereas French butter is often not salted at all. Under modern conditions, salt is only added for flavor, its original preservative function now obsolete.

The characteristic butter flavor comes partly from the high proportion of short-chain fatty acids milk fat contains, especially butyric acid. Ripening gives a "lactic" flavor derived principally from a substance called diacetyl, produced by the bacterial species involved. In the United States, most butter has a mild lactic flavor, although it is stronger in "cultured" butter, which is closer to that produced in Germany and central Europe, where strongly flavored butters are preferred.

Differences in butter flavor were far more apparent in the past. Factors that influenced the flavor of farm-made butter included the food the cattle ate. Turnips, introduced as a fodder crop in eighteenth-century England, were notorious for giving a characteristic and much-disliked taint to butter. Some pastures, such as those of Normandy, are recognized as producing excellently flavored butter. Poor storage conditions for milk or butter also led to taints, as fats pick up odors quickly. Storage in rooms that also contained, for instance, onions was not recommended. Care during handling is also important. Length of ripening time, hygienic handling, and complete expression of the buttermilk from the finished product influence flavor.

Finally, from the moment it is finished, butter is susceptible to rancidity of two types. Hydrolitic rancidity is produced by the presence of moisture and is hastened by enzymes and microorganisms, and consumers have developed a taste for some forms. Oxidative rancidity, produced by reaction with oxygen in the air, is found unacceptable by everyone.

Bibliography

Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1999.

Garard, Ira D. The Story of Food. Westport, Conn.: AVI Publishing, 1974.

McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984; New York: Scribners, 1984.

Visser, Margaret. Much Depends on Dinner. London: Penguin Books, 1986.

—Laura Mason

 
Nutritional Values: The Nutritional Value for: butter

Description Quantity Energy
(calories)
Carbs
(grams)
Protein
(grams)
Cholesterol
(milligrams)
Weight
(grams)
Fat
(grams)
Saturated Fat
(grams)
salted 1 PAT 35 0 0 11 5 4 2.5
salted 1 tbsp 100 0 0 31 14 11 7.1
salted 1/2 cup 810 0 1 247 113 92 57.1
unsalted 1 PAT 35 0 0 11 5 4 2.5
unsalted 1 tbsp 100 0 0 31 14 11 7.1
unsalted 1/2 cup 810 0 1 247 113 92 57.1
 
Word Tutor: butter
pronunciation

IN BRIEF: n. - An edible emulsion of fat globules made by churning milk or cream; A fighter who strikes the opponent with his head. v. - Spread butter on.

pronunciation All is fish that comes to the literary net. Goethe puts his joys and sorrows into poems, I turn my adventures into bread and butter. — Louisa May Alcott, Source: Jou.

 
Wikipedia: butter
Butter is commonly sold in sticks (pictured) or blocks, and frequently served with the use of a butter knife.
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Butter is commonly sold in sticks (pictured) or blocks, and frequently served with the use of a butter knife.

Butter is a dairy product, made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. Butter is used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying. Butter consists of butterfat surrounding minuscule droplets consisting mostly of water and milk proteins. The most common form of butter is made from cows' milk, but it can also be made from the milk of other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, and yaks. Salt, flavorings, or preservatives are sometimes added to butter. Rendering butter produces clarified butter or ghee, which is almost entirely butterfat. When refrigerated, butter remains a solid, but softens to a spreadable consistency at room temperature, and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32–35 °C (90–95 °F). The density of butter is 911 kg/m3 [1]. Butter generally has a pale yellow color, but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. The color of the butter depends on the animal's feed and is commonly manipulated with food colorings in the commercial manufacturing process, most commonly annatto or carotene.

The term "butter" is used in the names of products made from puréed nuts or peanuts, such as peanut butter. It is also used in the names of fruit products, such as apple butter. Other fats solid at room temperature are also known as "butters"; examples include cocoa butter and shea butter. In general use, the term "butter," when unqualified by other descriptors, almost always refers to the dairy product. The word butter, in the English language, derives (via Germanic languages) from the Latin butyrum, borrowed from the Greek boutyron. This may have been a construction meaning "cow-cheese" (bous "ox, cow" + tyros "cheese"), or the word may have been borrowed from another language, possibly Scythian.[2] The root word persists in the name butyric acid, a compound found in rancid butter and dairy products.

Butter production

Main article: Churning (butter)
Today, commercial butter-making is a carefully-controlled operation.
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Today, commercial butter-making is a carefully-controlled operation.

Unhomogenized milk and cream contain butterfat in microscopic globules. These globules are surrounded by membranes made of phospholipids (fatty acid emulsifiers) and proteins, which prevent the fat in milk from pooling together into a single mass. Butter is produced by agitating cream, which damages these membranes and allows the milk fats to conjoin, separating from the other parts of the cream. Variations in the production method will create butters with different consistencies, mostly due to the butterfat composition in the finished product. Butter contains fat in three separate forms: free butterfat, butterfat crystals, and undamaged fat globules. In the finished product, different proportions of these forms result in different consistencies within the butter; butters with many crystals are harder than butters dominated by free fats.

Churning produces small butter grains floating in the water-based portion of the cream. This watery liquid is called buttermilk—although the buttermilk most common today is instead a directly fermented skimmed milk. The buttermilk is drained off; sometimes more buttermilk is removed by rinsing the grains with water. Then the grains are "worked": pressed and kneaded together. When prepared manually, this is done using wooden boards called scotch hands. This consolidates the butter into a solid mass and breaks up embedded pockets of buttermilk or water into tiny droplets.

Commercial butter is about 80% butterfat and 15% water; traditionally-made butter may have as little as 65% fat and 30% water. Butterfat consists of many moderate-sized, saturated hydrocarbon chain fatty acids. It is a triglyceride, an ester derived from glycerol and three fatty acid groups. Butter becomes rancid when these chains break down into smaller components, like butyric acid and diacetyl. The density of butter is .911 g/cm³, about the same as ice.

Types of butter

French butter.
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French butter.

Before modern factory butter making, cream was usually collected from several milkings and was therefore several days old and somewhat fermented by the time it was made into butter. Butter made from a fermented cream is known as cultured butter. During fermentation, the cream naturally sours as bacteria convert milk sugars into lactic acid. The fermentation process produces additional aroma compounds, including diacetyl, which makes for a fuller-flavored and more "buttery" tasting product.[3] Today, cultured butter is usually made from pasteurized cream whose fermentation is produced by the introduction of Lactococcus and Leuconostoc bacteria.

Another method for producing cultured butter, developed in the 1970s, is to produce butter from fresh cream and then incorporate bacterial cultures and lactic acid. Using this method, the cultured butter flavor grows as the butter is aged in cold storage. For manufacturers, this method is more efficient since aging the cream used to make butter takes significantly more space than simply storing the finished butter product. A method to make an artificial simulation of cultured butter is to add lactic acid and flavor compounds directly to the fresh-cream butter; while this more efficient process is claimed to simulate the taste of cultured butter, the product produced is not cultured but is instead flavored.

Today, dairy products are often pasteurized during production to kill pathogenic bacteria and other microbes. Butter made from pasteurized fresh cream is called sweet cream butter. Production of sweet cream butter first became common in the 19th century, with the development of refrigeration and the mechanical cream separator.[4] Butter made from fresh or cultured unpasteurized cream is called raw cream butter. Raw cream butter has a "cleaner" cream flavor, without the cooked-milk notes that pasteurization introduces.

Throughout Continental Europe, cultured butter is preferred, while sweet cream butter dominates in the United States and the United Kingdom. Therefore, cultured butter is sometimes labeled European-style butter in the United States. Commercial raw cream butter is virtually unheard-of in the United States. Raw cream butter is generally only found made at home by consumers who have purchased raw whole milk directly from dairy farmers, skimmed the cream themselves, and made butter with it. It's rare in Europe as well.[5]

Several spreadable butters have been developed; these remain softer at colder temperatures and are therefore easier to use directly out of refrigeration. Some modify the makeup of the butter's fat through chemical manipulation of the finished product, some through manipulation of the cattle's feed, and some by incorporating vegetable oils into the butter. Whipped butter, another product designed to be more spreadable, is aerated via the incorporation of nitrogen gas—normal air is not used, because doing so would encourage oxidation and rancidity.

All categories of butter are sold in both salted and unsalted forms. Salted butters have either fine, granular salt or a strong brine added to them during the working. Nations that favor sweet cream butter tend to favor salted butter as well, possibly reflecting the blander taste of uncultured butter. In addition to flavoring the butter, the addition of salt also acts as a preservative.

Another important aspect of production is the amount of butterfat in the finished product. In the United States, all products sold as "butter" must contain a minimum of 80% butterfat by weight; most American butters contain only slightly more than that, averaging around 81%. European-style butters generally have a higher ratio of up to 85% butterfat.

Clarified butter is butter with almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point and then allowing it to cool off; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, whey proteins form a skin which is removed, and the resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and casein proteins that settle to the bottom.

Ghee is clarified butter which is brought to higher temperatures (120 °C/250 °F) once the water has cooked off, allowing the milk solids to brown. This process flavors the ghee, and also produces antioxidants which help protect it longer from rancidity. Because of this, ghee can keep for six to eight months under normal conditions.[6]

History

Ancient butter-making techniques were still practiced in the early 20th century. Picture taken from March 1914 National Geographic.
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Ancient butter-making techniques were still practiced in the early 20th century. Picture taken from March 1914 National Geographic.

Since even accidental agitation can turn cream into butter, it is likely that the invention of butter goes back to the earliest days of dairying, perhaps in the Mesopotamian area between 9000 and 8000 BCE. The earliest butter would have been from sheep or goat's milk; cattle are not thought to have been domesticated for another thousand years or so.[7] An ancient method of butter making, still used today in some parts of Africa and the Near East, is shown in the photo at right, taken in Palestine. A goat skin is half filled with milk, then inflated with air and sealed. It is then hung with ropes on a tripod of sticks and rocked to and fro until the butter is formed.

Butter was certainly known in the classical Mediterranean civilizations, but it does not seem to have been a common food, especially in Ancient Greece or Rome. In the warm Mediterranean climate, unclarified butter would spoil very quickly— unlike cheese, it was not a practical method of preserving the benefits of milk. The people of ancient Greece and Rome seemed to consider butter a food fit more for the northern barbarians. A play by the Greek comic poet Anaxandrides refers to Thracians as boutyrophagoi, "butter-eaters".[8] Pliny's Natural History calls butter "the most delicate of food among barbarous nations", and goes on to describe its medicinal properties.[9]

Historian and linguist Andrew Dalby says that most references to butter in ancient Near Eastern texts should more correctly be translated as ghee. Ghee is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as a typical trade article around the 1st century CE Arabian Sea, and Roman geographer Strabo describes it as a commodity of Arabia and Sudan.[10] In India, ghee has been a symbol of purity and an offering to the gods—especially Agni, the Hindu god of fire—for more than 3000 years; references to ghee's sacred nature appear numerous times in the Rig Veda, circa 1500–1200 BCE. The tale of the child Krishna stealing butter remains a popular children's story in India today. Since India's prehistory, ghee has been both a staple food and used for ceremonial purposes such as fueling holy lamps and funeral pyres.

Butter-making woman, Compost et Kalendrier des Bergères, Paris, 1499.
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Butter-making woman, Compost et Kalendrier des Bergères, Paris, 1499.

Cooler climates in northern Europe allowed butter to be kept longer before spoiling. Scandinavia has the longest history in Europe of a butter export trade, dating at least to the 12th century.[11] Across most of Europe after the fall of Rome and through much of the Middle Ages, butter was a common food, but one with a low reputation; it was consumed principally by peasants. It slowly became more accepted by the upper class, especially when, in the early 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church permitted its consumption during Lent. Bread and butter became common fare among the new middle class, and the English, in particular, gained a reputation for their liberal use of melted butter as a sauce for meats and vegetables.[12]

Across far-northern Europe—Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, and Scandinavia—butter was sometimes treated in a manner unheard-of today: it was packed into barrels (firkins) and buried in peat bogs, perhaps for years. Such "bog butter" would develop a strong flavor as it aged, but remain edible, in large part because of the unique cool, airless, antiseptic and acidic environment of a peat bog. Firkins of such buried butter are a common archaeological find in Ireland; the Irish National Museum has some containing "a grayish cheese-like substance, partially hardened, not much like butter, and quite free from putrefaction." The practice was most common in Ireland in the 11th–14th centuries; it ended entirely before the 19th century.[13]

France, like Ireland, became well-known for its butter, particularly in the Normandy and Brittany regions. By the 1860s, butter had become so in demand in France that Emperor Napoleon III offered prize money for an inexpensive substitute to supplement France's inadequate butter supplies. In 1869, a French chemist claimed the prize with the invention of margarine. The first margarine was beef tallow flavored with milk and worked like butter; vegetable margarines followed after the development of hydrogenated oils around 1900.

Until the 19th century, the vast majority of butter was made by hand, on farms. The first butter factories appeared in the United States in the early 1860s, after the successful introduction of cheese factories a decade earlier. In the late 1870s, the centrifugal cream separator was introduced, marketed most successfully by Swedish engineer Carl Gustaf Patrik de Laval. This dramatically sped the butter-making process by eliminating the slow step of letting cream naturally rise to the top of milk. Initially, whole milk was shipped to the butter factories, and the cream separation took place there. Soon, though, cream-separation technology became small and inexpensive enough to introduce an additional efficiency: the separation was accomplished on the farm, and the cream alone shipped to the factory. By 1900, more than half the butter produced in the United States was factory made; Europe followed suit shortly after.

Per capita butter consumption declined in most western nations during the 20th century, in large part because of the rising popularity of margarine, which is less expensive and, until recent years, was perceived as being healthier. In the United States, margarine consumption overtook butter during the 1950s[14] and it is still the case today that more margarine than butter is eaten in the U.S. and most other nations that track such data.[15]

Shape of butter sticks

Western-Pack shape Butter
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Western-Pack shape Butter

In the United States, butter sticks are usually produced and sold in 4-ounce sticks, wrapped in wax paper and sold four to a carton. This practice is believed to have originated in 1907 when Swift and Company began packaging butter in this manner for mass distribution.[16]

Due to historical variances in butter printers, these sticks are commonly produced in two differing shapes:

  • The dominant shape east of the Rocky Mountains is the Elgin, or Eastern-pack shape. This shape was originally developed by the Elgin Butter Tub Company, founded in 1882 in Elgin, Illinois and Rock Falls, Illinois. The sticks are 4.75" long and 1.25" wide, and are usually sold in somewhat cubical boxes stacked 2x2.[17] Among the early butter printers to use this shape was the Elgin Butter Cutter.
  • West of the Rocky Mountains, butter printers standardized on a different shape that is now referred to as the Western-Pack shape.[17] These butter sticks are 3.125" long and 1.5" wide and are typically sold packed side-by-side in a rectangular container.

Both sticks contain the same amount of butter, although most butter dishes are designed for Elgin-style butter sticks.[citation needed]

The stick's wrapper is usually marked off as 8 tablespoons (approximately 118 ml); the actual volume of one stick is approximately 9 tablespoons.

Worldwide

India produces and consumes more butter than any other nation, dedicating almost half of its annual milk production to making butter or ghee. In 1997, India produced 1,470,000 metric tons of butter, consuming almost all of it. Second in production was the United States (522,000 tons), then France (466,000), Germany (442,000), and New Zealand (307,000). In terms of consumption, Germany was second after India, using 578,000 tons of butter in 1997, followed by France (528,000), Russia (514,000), and the United States (505,000). Most nations produce and consume the bulk of their butter domestically. New Zealand, Australia, and the Ukraine are among the few nations that export a significant percentage of the butter they produce.[18]

Different varieties of butter are found around the world. Smen is a spiced Moroccan clarified butter, buried in the ground and aged for months or years. Yak butter is important in Tibet; tsampa, barley flour mixed with yak butter, is a staple food. Butter tea is consumed in the Himalayan regions of Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and India. It consists of tea served with intensely flavored — or "rancid"—yak butter and salt. In African and Asian developing nations, butter is traditionally made from sour milk rather than cream. It can take several hours of churning to produce workable butter grains from fermented milk.[19]

Storage and cooking

Normal butter softens to a spreadable consistency around 15 °C (60 °F), well above refrigerator temperatures. The "butter compartment" found in many refrigerators may be one of the warmer sections inside, but it still leaves butter quite hard. Until recently, many refrigerators sold in New Zealand featured a "butter conditioner", a compartment kept warmer than the rest of the refrigerator—but still cooler than room temperature—with a small heater.[20] Keeping butter tightly wrapped delays rancidity, which is hastened by exposure to light or air, and also helps prevent it from picking up other odors. Wrapped butter has a shelf life of several months at refrigerator temperatures.[21]

"French butter dishes" or "Acadian butter dishes" involve a lid with a long interior lip, which sits in a container holding a small amount of water. Usually the dish holds just enough water to submerge the interior lip when the dish is closed. Butter is packed into the lid. The water acts as a seal to keep the butter fresh, and also keeps the butter from overheating in hot temperatures. This allows butter to be safely stored on the countertop for several days without spoilage.

Once butter is softened, spices, herbs, or other flavoring agents can be mixed into it, producing what is called a composed butter or composite butter. Composed butters can be used as spreads, or cooled, sliced, and placed onto hot food to melt into a sauce. Sweetened composed butters can be served with desserts; such hard sauces are often flavored with spirits.

Hollandaise sauce served over white asparagus and potatoes.
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Hollandaise sauce served over white asparagus and potatoes.

Melted butter plays an important role in the preparation of sauces, most obviously in French cuisine. Beurre noisette (hazel butter) and Beurre noir (black butter) are sauces of melted butter cooked until the milk solids and sugars have turned golden or dark brown; they are often finished with an addition of vinegar or lemon juice. Hollandaise and béarnaise sauces are emulsions of egg yolk and melted butter; they are in essence mayonnaises made with butter instead of oil. Hollandaise and béarnaise sauces are stabilized with the powerful emulsifiers in the egg yolks, but butter itself contains enough emulsifiers—mostly remnants of the fat globule membranes—to form a stable emulsion on its own. Beurre blanc (white butter) is made by whisking butter into reduced vinegar or wine, forming an emulsion with the texture of thick cream. Beurre monté (prepared butter) is an unflavored beurre blanc made from water instead of vinegar or wine; it lends its name to the practice of "mounting" a sauce with butter: whisking cold butter into any water-based sauce at the end of cooking, giving the sauce a thicker body and a glossy shine—as well as a buttery taste.[22]

Butter is used for sautéing and frying, although its milk solids brown and burn above 150 °C (250 °F)—a rather low temperature for most applications. The