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 Salt Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Make the butter
Remove the buttermilk from the butter by beating it with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Wash the butter with clear spring water until the water runs clear.
Mix the salt and powdered sugar into the butter.
Shape and serve
Divide the butter into portions and shape into rolls or circular forms.
If desired, impress a design on the butter using a wooden print.
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
- Provides the fat base; working and washing it removes buttermilk, which would otherwise spoil its flavour and keeping.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the butter and helps preserve it by reducing the water available to microbes.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds a slight sweetness that rounds out the butter's flavour.
The step that matters
Removing the buttermilk. Butter must be beaten and washed until the water runs clear. Leftover buttermilk contains milk solids and water that encourage spoilage and turn the flavour sour, so thorough working shortens the butter's keeping life.
“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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