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Preserve

To Preserve Butter

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

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 ↓

To Preserve Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cure

  1. Mix the common salt, loaf sugar, and saltpetre together thoroughly.

  2. Cleanse 16 ounces of butter from the milk.

  3. Add 1 ounce of the salt mixture to the butter and work it in well.

Pot and store

  1. Pack the butter into pots, ensuring it is firm and cold before sealing.

  2. Store the butter in a cool, air-tight container for at least one month before use.

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
Provides the fat and body that the cure is worked into, forming the preserved product.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and helps preserve the butter against spoilage.
Loaf sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt with a mild sweetness.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the butter during storage.

The step that matters

Working in the salt mixture well. If the salt mixture is not worked evenly through the butter, pockets of salt and unsalted areas form, so preservation is uneven and spoilage can start in the unsalted parts.

“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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