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Dessert

Butter Kept Sweet

Butter preserved by brining in a salt solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

Directions

Prepare the butter

  1. Ensure the butter is fresh and has all the milk washed out.

  2. Mix the sugar evenly into the butter.

Pack and brine

  1. Pack the butter into stone crocks.

  2. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg, then strain it.

  3. Pour the brine two inches deep over the butter.

  4. Cover the crock tightly.

Serve

  1. When ready to use, cut out the butter 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.

  1. 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

Butter
Forms the body of the dish and carries the flavor that the brine and sugar affect.
White granulated sugar
Adds a mild sweetness that balances the salty brine.
Coarse sea salt
Makes the brine that covers and seasons the butter.

The step that matters

Make the brine strong enough to float an egg. The salt concentration decides how well the brine protects the butter, and a floating egg shows the brine is salty enough. The butter must stay fully under the brine so air cannot reach it and spoil it.

“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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