Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Brine for Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Make a brine strong enough to float an egg.
Add ½ pound of sugar and 2 tablespoons of baking soda for each gallon of brine.
Soak the butter
Strain the brine and pour it over the butter.
Roll the butter in cloth and keep it submerged under the brine.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the brine and helps it carry flavor into the butter.
- Baking soda
- Raises the brine's pH, which changes the butter's proteins and milk solids and alters its texture.
- Butter
- The main ingredient; it is the food being brined and changed by the solution.
The step that matters
Keep the butter fully submerged under the brine. Any part left above the liquid will not take up the brine evenly, so the texture and flavor will vary across the block.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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