Name: Butter Kept Sweet
Ingredients: ½ ounce white granulated sugar; 1 pound fresh butter; brine (enough to cover the butter)

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 ↓

Butter Kept Sweet

Ingredients

½ ounce white granulated sugar
1 pound fresh butter
brine (enough to cover the butter)

Directions

Prepare

Ensure the butter is fresh and has all the milk washed out.
Mix the sugar evenly into the butter.
Pack the butter into stone crocks.

Brine and store

Prepare a brine strong enough to float an egg, then strain it.
Pour the brine two inches deep over the butter and cover the crock tightly.
To use the butter, cut it out without removing the brine.

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.

Sugar + buttertop 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

Fresh butter: Forms the main body of the preserve, so freshness and thorough milk washing matter.
White granulated sugar: Adds a touch of sweetness to the butter.
Brine: Covers the butter to keep it submerged and protected while it is stored.

“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.