I looked at my butter today, the ingredients are:

  • butter oil
  • milk powder

What the hell is butter oil? I tried googling it, but I get VERY contradictory results, nothing from a reputable source I could find.

  • GreyShuck
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    3028 days ago

    Checking the ones that I usually buy the ingredients are:

    • Butter

    Or, if I go for salted versions:

    • Butter
    • Salt
    • Dyskolos
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      127 days ago

      You’re right and i love it. Customers shouldn’t be taken for absolute numbnuts.

  • @[email protected]
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    1028 days ago

    Just start making your own. It’s actually really really easy.

    Required equipment:
    Big mixing bowl
    Electric mixer

    Required ingredients:
    Extra thick double cream/whipping cream

    Optional ingredients:
    Salt
    Garlic
    Wild garlic
    Insert herb here

    Process:

    1. place cream in bowl.
    2. whip until it separates, folding the chunks back in and stop when there’s only butter and
    3. decant newly made buttermilk.
    4. wash butter to remove buttermilk by filling bowl part way with cold water and just squeezing the butter. Switch water and wash until no visible milkyness comes out of the butter.
    5. add extras by folding or blending it through the butter.
    6. store any butter you’re not likely to use within a few days in the freezer, I like to portion it out into 100g bits, so I know I won’t be wasting any of it.

    There, now you’ll never have to wonder what your butter is made from again!

    • Dave Coe
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      728 days ago

      Salt is not an optional ingredient.

      Unsalted butter is a crime against cuisine.

      Thank you for self-reporting, criminal. Please stand by, the butter police will arrive shortly.

      • @[email protected]
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        1828 days ago

        I would like to say that while this is clearly made in jest, unsalted butter is a requirement for some really great recipes, and also some people are on say a low sodium diet. I put it as optional, because I’m a mature person and don’t yuck other people’s yum.

        • @benignintervention
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          1428 days ago

          I use unsalted butter almost exclusively so I can more easily control the salt content of my dishes

          • @[email protected]OP
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            528 days ago

            Why do people even combine butter and salt? Why not keep them separate, I think every kitchen I’ve ever seen has salt in it

            • Skua
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              728 days ago

              Traditionally, salted butter was way saltier than our modern salted butter and it was a way to make it last longer before we had refrigeration and pasteurisation

            • @[email protected]
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              428 days ago

              When using butter as a spread it’s nice to have some salt incorporated. A salt shaker is very easy to overdo on something light like toast or pancakes.

      • my_hat_stinks
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        728 days ago

        Do you eat butter straight? When you cook with butter you can add salt as needed, it’s much harder to remove salt that’s already there.

      • @halcyoncmdr
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        628 days ago

        Unsalted butter should be used when cooking specifically because you can control the salt level yourself directly by… Adding salt. It’s easy to add salt, but very difficult to rebalance a dish when something is too salty.

        Salted butter should be used when you’re adding it to something that’s already done, like when buttering toast.

    • @[email protected]
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      527 days ago

      Or as some people want to do, whipping cream, sugar and whip. Then get distracted and come back to sweet butter and buttermilk.

  • Skua
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    1028 days ago

    Butter oil is, in my understanding, the fats from butter after everything else has been removed. In that sense it’s not unlike clarified butter, but probably made with a centrifuge rather than heat. Adding milk powder (and presumably some water) sounds like basically adding back in what got removed to make the butter oil. I would hazard a guess that this is done because both butter oil and milk powder separately have far longer shelf lives than butter does

    So I think that it’s basically the same components as regular butter, they’ve just been separated out and then recombined. I have no idea if this does anything to the flavour

    • @[email protected]
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      428 days ago

      Might also be to get a consistent product , fat percentages probably vary, by taking it apart and putting always the same amounts together again they can always make it taste the same. I believe they do the same with orange juice

  • @[email protected]
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    928 days ago

    Does your butter say just “butter” on the label, or something like “butter product?” Check the fine print, because that’s not butter

  • @[email protected]
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    628 days ago

    That’s not butter then.

    Butter should include 100% butter, full stop.

    Butter oil sounds like clarified butter that’s been thickened up with milk powder or something?

  • Hossenfeffer
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    628 days ago

    Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, MSG, Butylated Hydroxyanisole, Propyl Gallate, Diacetyl, High-Fructose Corn Syrup (obv.), Tartrazine, Monosodium Glutamate, Salt, and traces of butter solids. Mmmmmm. Tasty.

  • @[email protected]
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    28 days ago

    Oil. From butter. Duh. /s

    p.s. You’re gonna love it when you find out how much cacao is in “white chocolate”.

  • @[email protected]OP
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    28 days ago

    Upon further inspection:

    Ingredients :

    • Butter Oil 80.5%
    • Milk powder 2%
    • Salt: 1.5%
    • Contains milkd powder and may contain soy products.
  • @CMDR_Horn
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    228 days ago

    Honestly I can’t believe it’s not butter