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Salt Butter, to Make

A preserved butter made by mixing salt, sugar, and optional saltpetre with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sugar 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 ↓

Salt Butter, to Make

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the butter

  1. Thoroughly work 1 to 2 ounces of coarse sea salt into 1 pound of butter, depending on how long you want to preserve it.

  2. For a longer preservation method, mix 2 parts best salt, 1 part sugar, and 1 part saltpetre into a fine powder.

  3. Use 1 ounce of this mixture for each pound of butter and mix it thoroughly with the butter after separating it from the whey.

Pack and cure

  1. Pack the butter tightly into a clean cask, excluding air.

  2. Cover the top with a sprinkling of salt and pour melted butter over it to fill any crevices before sealing the cask.

  3. Let the butter sit for at least two weeks for the best flavor.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Butter
Forms the body of the preserve; its water and fat are what the salt acts on.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and slows spoilage, so the butter keeps longer.
Best salt
Provides the main salting and preserving action in the longer-keeping mixture.
Sugar
Adds a mild sweetness that balances the sharpness of the salt.

The step that matters

Excluding air when packing the cask. Butter exposed to air can oxidise and turn rancid, and trapped air pockets allow spoilage to start. Packing tightly and pouring melted butter over the top seals the surface against air.

“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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