Skip to main content
Dessert

To Preserve Butter

A method for preserving butter using salt, saltpetre, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Preserve Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the butter

  1. Melt the butter in an earthen vessel surrounded by warm water.

  2. Skim the butter until clear.

  3. If desired, add a little coarse sea salt before pouring. Stir it in.

  4. Pour the pure portion into pots.

Preserve and rest

  1. Mix 2 ounces of salt with 1 ounce each of saltpetre and white sugar.

  2. Add 1 ounce of this mixture in fine powder to each pound of butter, working it well in.

  3. Fill the pots to the top and cover closely. Ensure the pots are filled to the brim.

  4. Do not use the butter for a month.

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 fat base that the preserving cure is worked into and that keeps the pots full and sealed.
Salt
Draws out moisture and slows spoilage by making the butter less hospitable to microbes.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps inhibit spoilage in the preserved butter.
White sugar
Balances the salt and cure, adding a mild sweetness to the finished butter.

The step that matters

Filling the pots to the brim. Air trapped under the surface can let oxidation and microbial growth start, so the pots should be filled to the top and covered closely to exclude 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.

You might also like

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