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 Freshen Salt Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Work the butter over in small quantities in cold water, changing the water until it is clear.
Mix the sugar and coarse sea salt into the butter.
Shape the butter into rolls or pack it into jars.
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.
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 whole dish, providing fat, richness and the creamy texture of the finished butter.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the butter and adds savory flavor while helping preserve it.
- White sugar
- Adds a subtle sweetness that balances the salt's savory flavor.
The step that matters
Working the butter in cold water. Washing the butter removes residual buttermilk, which contains milk solids and water that can spoil the butter and shorten its keeping time. Changing the water until it runs clear removes most of these solids, and the butter should be worked just enough to combine without warming it, since warm butter becomes soft and greasy.
“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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