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Brine That Preserves Butter a Year

A method of preserving butter by submerging it in a sugar and saltpetre brine.

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 ↓

Brine That Preserves Butter a Year

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Boil 3 gallons of water with ¼ pound sugar and 1 tablespoon saltpetre to prepare a brine strong enough to float an egg.

  2. Allow the brine to cool and strain it carefully.

Pack and weigh the butter

  1. Pack the butter tightly into small jars and pour the brine over it, ensuring it covers the butter by at least 4 inches.

  2. If possible, shape the butter into small rolls, wrap each in a clean muslin cloth, and tie with string.

  3. Place a weight on the butter to keep it submerged in 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

Loaf sugar
Sweetens the brine and softens the sharp edge of the salt.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the butter and slows spoilage.
Butter
The fat being preserved, kept submerged so air cannot reach it.

The step that matters

Keep the butter fully submerged. Any butter that rises above the brine is exposed to air, which lets mould and spoilage bacteria grow. Tight packing and a weight keep every surface under the brine, which is what makes the preservation work.

“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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