Skip to main content
Dessert

Preserving Butter

A method of preserving butter by salting, sugaring, and adding saltpetre, then storing for a month.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Preserving Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the coarse sea salt, sugar, and saltpetre.

  2. Add the butter and work the mixture well until it forms a mass.

  3. Seal the mixture in a container and let it stand for one month before using.

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 its fat carries the seasoning through the whole mass.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the butter and helps preserve it during the long rest.
Saltpetre
Acts as a preservative during the long cure.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the salt and adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Working the mixture until it forms a mass. Salt and saltpetre must be evenly distributed through the butter. Unworked pockets of salt or saltpetre leave uneven seasoning and preservation, so the mixture should be worked thoroughly before sealing.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes