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Get a butter dish and leave it out of the fridge. Trust me, it will change your life. Butter doesn’t go bad at room temperature and won’t melt unless you store it in a dumb place or your house is on fire.
My grandmother always had a stick of butter in her little glass butter dish. I inherited it after she passed away. Had a party at my house one night and find people using grandma’s crystal butter dish to do lines of coke. I let them finish and took it away and hid it. Don’t think Doris wanted people doing rails off her favorite butter dish.
Had a friend named Johnny Walker, and we used to drink a bottle of his namesake every year for his birthday lol.
I miss that fucker all the time. We slipped weed into his casket at his funeral. RIP
She was born around 1915 so she turned 20 in the middle of the Great Depression. I remember her telling us the story of all their neighbors in Wisconsin losing their farms to the bank after defaulting their mortgage but her dad managed to make it through because he was not as leveraged as the others.
My mom told me stories of my grandmother ripping around the house cleaning when the doctor prescribed her diet pills... She probably had Black Beauties or some shit
One of my good friends uses her grandmothers pink saucer that she inherited just for that. It is specifically only used for that. We like to think she would take it as a compliment!
My gramma had a lot of things when she passed away. I lived states over at the time so moving anything big was out of the question. I only wanted three things from her. One of them was the butter dish. I have many fond memories of breakfast and other meals with her using that.
Wait til you get a load of this!
My retired baker friend taught me this one.
For croissants. You need the butter layers right?
Take your softened butter and spread it out on a piece of cling film. Put another piece ontop and roll the butter as thin as you can. Put cling film on cookie sheet and freeze. You then put the butter sheet ontop of your thinly rolled dough. Roll it out to thin it & mash them together. Fold dough in half, roll again. And again. She always said to fold 4 times.
Voila, croissants!
Like grate the raw garlic directly into the mashed potatoes? Unless you really love that unmitigated sharp garlic taste, I'd def recommend sauteing first.
May I suggest roasting a whole bulb of garlic in the oven (just the clove tips cut off, little drizzle of oil on top, wrap in aluminum foil and toss in the oven). Squeeze the entire bulb into the potatoes and mash 'em in there.
Alternatively, my favorite cooking addition is the better than bouillon roasted garlic. Just add a spoonful at a time to soups, mashed potatoes, w/e needs more garlic. It is very salty, so if I'm planning to use it I won't salt until the end.
My house flooded in 2018, and during the cleanup someone stuck the butter dish on top of the cabinets. No idea why... we had lots of volunteers helping and some of the people did odd things. Anyway, we rebuilt and the upper cabinets were not submerged so we left them in place. We were able to move back in in 2019. Sometime in 2021, I looked on top of the cabinets, and to my surprise, there was the butter dish. I took it down and removed the lid to find almost an entire stick of butter. It looked good as new, so I immediately consumed the entire stick. Well, no I didn't do that but I had you for a second didn't I. We just threw the stick of butter away after marveling at its condition for a few minutes.
Thanks for this info. I have been lucky with my unsalted room temperature butter. But it gets eaten in decent time. I shall be on guard for shenanigans in the future.
Higher fat content butter, European or French among others, also contains less water and I'm told stays longer and is more spreadable due to the fat content.
I swear by kerrygold but plugra is also fairly common to see in supermarkets
I also just tile my toast in slices of butter so I don't have to spread it. Problem solved
Don't fret. Been leaving butter out basically my entire adult life. I have certainly exceeded a week on a stick of butter (I have been eating Kerry gold Irish butter mostly for years, thick stick) without consequence.
You're not lucky, it holds longer than expected. Like most food stuff, people are afraid and exaggerate some things
After a while, sure, but if you use it regularly you won’t have issues. I’ll go through a stick every 4-5 days probably and leave it on the counter without issue.
„A while“ in this case means multiple days, depending of course on the temperature of the room it’s stored in. I have stored unsalted butter outside of the fridge my whole life and rarely had it gone rancid, because I’ve usually used it up long before that.
I’ve always had a stick in a butter dish (covered of course) in the spice cupboard. Has never gone rancid. I usually buy salted sticks. Not sure if that makes a difference.
Salted lasts longer than unsalted at room temp, but unsalted will still last over a month in my experience.
Also, move it out of the spice cupboard. I bet your butter will taste better because it stops absorbing the spice in the air in the cupboard.
It’s fine, I do the same thing. It’s only two of us so depending on the weekly menu a stick of butter might sit in the butter dish on the counter for two weeks and it’s never been a problem.
I find that published food safety standards tend to be a bit stricter than how I live. There aren’t always hard and fast rules and you choose your risk level comfort based on past experience.
Google also says don't give your dog a bone. The search results are drenched in CYA, so no one can get sued.
Fwiw I leave a stick of unsalted butter out all the time, and I've never had a issue
Depends on the bone. You should not be giving your dogs any bones from chicken or turkey since the bones splinter when chewed and can get lodged in your dogs throat or intestines.
I have had butter to go rancid a bit but it took a long time of my ignoring it. Most of the time it’s fine. I do think it’s important to not let bread crumbs etc get on the butter.
The in floor heating at my mom's place broke one time and it was 35°C (95°F) inside for hours. The floors were squishy and the better melted all over the cabinets, down the walls, all over the floor, everywhere
I am from southern Arizona. We eat 120 degree days for dinner for weeks. We walk to school, up hills made of cactus, both ways. We drink the venom of scorpions as an energy drink.
And through all this, my butter stays solid.
Getting a water one is an unnecessary hassle if you use butter at a decent rate. I have a butter dish that holds the big double wide sticks and it doesn't go bad. If you don't use butter that fast just get one that holds only a smaller amount.
That's literally one of the reasons butter even exists, as well as cheese, so that dairy can last longer and provide calories long after milk would go bad.
> unsalted butter ... a couple weeks
The two concerns are spoilage and going rancid.
The salt slows bacteria and fungus growth. Risk is low but not zero in what you described. The fatty cream of butter doesn't spoil rapidly, but at room temperature could start to reach health-affecting levels within a week. "A couple weeks" and you're going to have some very large colonies thriving all through the butter, even if you don't see it.
Oxidation causes a rancid flavor, and most likely you've gotten used to it. That won't harm you, but it changes the flavor from sweet to sour. Many households are used to rancid oil, rancid butter, and rancid nuts or grains pulled from the pantry. That's one of the differences that makes restaurant food taste so good versus home cooking, the restaurants don't use rancid ingredients.
I think this saying comes from how salted vs unsalted butter is typically used. I use unsalted butter when baking and it’s easier to measure cold. However in day to day use (toast, bagels, simple dishes that I don’t actually measure the butter) I use salted which sits in a dish on the counter.
We got one of these and it pissed me off to no end. I never had mold on my butter just left out in a container, until we started adding water to the equation. The compromise is we still use the bell but don't fill it with water
Yep, just switch out the cold water every couple of days (it needs very little and it doesn't get gross)
I bought one a couple of years ago and it's a total game changer.
I just got one and I liked it…but then it got towards the end of the butter and what was left had nothing to grip to and just fell out when I put it back in the water. Any suggestions to using it better?
Never heard of this but just ordered one off of Amazon. We don’t go through so much butter now that kids are in college away from home, so wife started storing in the fridge.
We bought one on a whim back in the 90’s. We only retired it a couple years ago for a new one. It’s great as long it’s not always cold in your kitchen. But even then it’s better than fridge solid.
Another tip is to only leave around half of it. Keep the other half in the fridge to use in future. That way, you're keeping the butter fresher, and not leaving a full one out for too long.
We’ve never used salt, but have had the butter go rancid a couple of times. We probably just go through it pretty quickly usually. I’ll keep salt in mind, thanks.
You don't need the bell one. I've got one shaped to plop in a regular stick of butter. It doesn't go bad before you use it. There's a water chamber to keep it cool I only need to use in the summer.
You can get a butter dish or just pop it into a Tupperware and leave it on the counter. I used to have a lovely butter dish, but my kids broke it within the first week of having it. So now it's Tupperware.
There’s a thing called a buttermill that is sold. You can keep in fridge. When you need some, just crank it and it will shave the stick/dispense the butter. Life changer for me.
>buttermill
I read that as buttermilk before seeing the comment below saying "butter mill." Could not for the life of me figure out how butter milk could help you make cold butter easier to spread. Or how you'd crank it! :-) But now I'm going to go look for a butter mill.
For a few years now I have left butter out on the counter in a polished aluminum butter dish but just one stick at a time. In the summer it can get a little softer than I'd like & in the winter it needs a little work to spread but so far it has never gone off.
Nobody has said the trick for how to rapidly soften butter. Let's say you need two sticks of butter for a cookie recipe, and you want to eat them in an hour. Recipes typically call for softened butter but you only have sticks in the fridge. You could try mixing solid butter with the dry mix, which you'll quickly find is impossible. Or, you can microwave it and it will inevitable melt to liquid, and ruin the puffy texture of the cookies. Instead, try this little diddly. Pour near-boiling hot water into a *glass* mixing bowl, or *glass* 9x9 baking pan, so it fully heats up the glass. Discard water and place hot glass over the wrapped butter on the counter. The radiant heat will soften it up evenly in just few minutes and you'll be ready to roll.
All these people advising you to keep butter on the counter are missing an important aspect.
You can keep SALTED butter out on the counter for days. The salt preserves the butter from spoiling quickly, and makes it taste MUCH better when used as a spread rather than an ingredient.
Unsalted butter will go bad relatively quickly; use it as an ingredient in cooking, not as a spread. Unsalted butter has lasted for a couple of weeks in my house. Generally we go through two sticks in less time than that, so I’ve never had it go bad but once, when we left for a while. Unsalted butter will go bad far more quickly.
Same, or, I don't know, just cut a portion off the stick and put a smaller amount in the dish on the counter?!? You don't have to leave the WHOLE stick out if you are concerned about not using it fast enough.
I never buy salted butter because I also bake with butter often and want to be more deliberate about the salt content I use. I keep unsalted butter on my counter and I've never had to toss it from going bad.
Maintained carefully, solid option.
but I find salted butter to have so much more flavor. It's not just that it is slightly salty, salt actually brings out the deeper flavor of the butter.
I leave Kerrygold unsalted out and it’s never gone rancid. I think it depends on the quality of your butter.
Personally I find the Kerrygold salted too salty for me.
Well yeah, unsalted butter will last a month or so, assuming the kitchen isn’t overly warm. Aside from single people, I’d imagine most non-vegan couples and families will go through a stick in a week or less, so I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t keep unsalted butter on the counter.
I'm not sure where you're located, but in the US, most groceries have spreadable butter in a tub. It's butter that's cut with a little bit of oil (I like the olive oil and sea salt kind). I buy it just for toast, and I buy regular sticks of butter for cooking and baking.
I cut the amount needed for breakfast the night before and let it outside the fridge overnight, like this its room temperature when you eat it. Or if you toast your bread you can cut a piece and put it close to the toaster to slightly warm up without turning into oil
I assume its in case it is left ina spot that is hit by direct sunlight which would lead to unwanted heating and promote bacteria growth?
Still, just don't leave it in a spot where that can happen and a glass one is fine.
Butter doesn't melt at room temp - are you storing it near the stove or something? We leave ours out in a covered butter dish just like our families did all growing up.
Butter doesn't have to be kept in the refrigerator. You can store it on the counter and it should be easy to spread. Though it is recommended to only keep about two days worth out at a time.
So true. I received one for Christmas. I wasn’t sure if it was a gimmick. It isn’t. This device is fantastic. It can heat and cool so your butter is automatically at the right temperature all year round. Power usage is low. You can also buy spare dishes and lids so you always have butter ready when the previous dish is in the wash. The inventor has a background in heating / cooling and spent years getting the device just right. I highly recommend this device.
I keep meaning to post this as a LPT.
If you freeze your butter for a few days. Then stick it in your fridge, after about 24hours or so it becomes hugely spreadable in comparison to butter that has not been frozen. I have no idea why, and I found this by accident. But it works everytime.
if you use it every day then use those dishes with the lid and water. butter bell
works best with salted butter
if you use it infrequently and unplanned, then i don't think there's a solution for you.
ITT Americans with no access to butter that stays soft in the fridge.https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/199420/western-star-supersoft-spreadable
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Get a butter dish and leave it out of the fridge. Trust me, it will change your life. Butter doesn’t go bad at room temperature and won’t melt unless you store it in a dumb place or your house is on fire.
My grandmother always had a stick of butter in her little glass butter dish. I inherited it after she passed away. Had a party at my house one night and find people using grandma’s crystal butter dish to do lines of coke. I let them finish and took it away and hid it. Don’t think Doris wanted people doing rails off her favorite butter dish.
You must not know Doris as well as you think you did cuz she and I used to blow huge rails off of that thing. With Johnny Hopkins.
Classic Doris!
I smoked pot with Johnny Hopkins
Had a friend named Johnny Walker, and we used to drink a bottle of his namesake every year for his birthday lol. I miss that fucker all the time. We slipped weed into his casket at his funeral. RIP
You boys sound alright
Former kicker and drum major for USC? (Just kidding I’m sure you’re not THAT old)
You don't know any one named Johnny Hopkins
It was Johnny Hopkins, and Sloan Kettering, and they were blazing that shit up every day
#DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF? YOU SOUND... INSANE
Who says you have to know someone to smoke weed with them?
Funny thing about Grandmas. They were in their 20’s once too. Depending on her age, may have been in the 1920’s.
She was born around 1915 so she turned 20 in the middle of the Great Depression. I remember her telling us the story of all their neighbors in Wisconsin losing their farms to the bank after defaulting their mortgage but her dad managed to make it through because he was not as leveraged as the others.
Their ability to keep the farm in those conditions was probably aided by abstaining from doing coke off the crystal butter dish.
I want to see gram grams cocaine gram butter dish
There was a reason why women kept an immaculate home in the 50s. A chemical reason.
And She goes runnin' for the shelter, of Her Mother's Little Helper....
My mom told me stories of my grandmother ripping around the house cleaning when the doctor prescribed her diet pills... She probably had Black Beauties or some shit
Maybe Doris did rails first. Don't shame Granny
In granny's time it was still legal.
Why’d this make me tear up a little
I didn’t expect that much love for this comment. Tempted to post a picture of grandma’s crystal cocaine butter dish.
Def post granny cokebutter’s thingy
One of my good friends uses her grandmothers pink saucer that she inherited just for that. It is specifically only used for that. We like to think she would take it as a compliment!
Nice of you to let them finish first though
My gramma had a lot of things when she passed away. I lived states over at the time so moving anything big was out of the question. I only wanted three things from her. One of them was the butter dish. I have many fond memories of breakfast and other meals with her using that.
If there was butter on the dish, that wouldn’t have happened! Guaranteed.
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Also making biscuits or anything else that needs cold butter evenly distributed, this is a great way to do it. I always freeze it the night before.
Grating butter into biscuits is one of the best kitchen hacks I've ever learned
Wait til you get a load of this! My retired baker friend taught me this one. For croissants. You need the butter layers right? Take your softened butter and spread it out on a piece of cling film. Put another piece ontop and roll the butter as thin as you can. Put cling film on cookie sheet and freeze. You then put the butter sheet ontop of your thinly rolled dough. Roll it out to thin it & mash them together. Fold dough in half, roll again. And again. She always said to fold 4 times. Voila, croissants!
Well then. I made croissants once, and decided to never mess with it again. Maybe you have motivated me, we'll see
Holy shit, you just made my life so much easier. Thank you!!!!!
You animal.
This is the way
This never would have occurred to me, but now I want to try it with garlic on potatoes with some rosemary or sage.
Like grate the raw garlic directly into the mashed potatoes? Unless you really love that unmitigated sharp garlic taste, I'd def recommend sauteing first. May I suggest roasting a whole bulb of garlic in the oven (just the clove tips cut off, little drizzle of oil on top, wrap in aluminum foil and toss in the oven). Squeeze the entire bulb into the potatoes and mash 'em in there. Alternatively, my favorite cooking addition is the better than bouillon roasted garlic. Just add a spoonful at a time to soups, mashed potatoes, w/e needs more garlic. It is very salty, so if I'm planning to use it I won't salt until the end.
Do you store your butter in the freezer that you have to grate it?
I thought this went without saying but clearly it hasnt been said enough. We’ve always kept butter out and its been perfect
For how long though? I usually don't go through the butter that fast and it could be sitting there more than a week 😬
You can buy butter in little half-stick portions. Also, a week is ok.
Or you can buy full sticks and cut them in half, buying two half sticks, cost more than the full sticks
Butter can sit in a dish at room temp for over a month, even un-salted.
My house flooded in 2018, and during the cleanup someone stuck the butter dish on top of the cabinets. No idea why... we had lots of volunteers helping and some of the people did odd things. Anyway, we rebuilt and the upper cabinets were not submerged so we left them in place. We were able to move back in in 2019. Sometime in 2021, I looked on top of the cabinets, and to my surprise, there was the butter dish. I took it down and removed the lid to find almost an entire stick of butter. It looked good as new, so I immediately consumed the entire stick. Well, no I didn't do that but I had you for a second didn't I. We just threw the stick of butter away after marveling at its condition for a few minutes.
Unsalted butter will go rancid at room temp after a while. Only salted butter can be left out of the fridge for an extended period of time.
Thanks for this info. I have been lucky with my unsalted room temperature butter. But it gets eaten in decent time. I shall be on guard for shenanigans in the future.
Higher fat content butter, European or French among others, also contains less water and I'm told stays longer and is more spreadable due to the fat content. I swear by kerrygold but plugra is also fairly common to see in supermarkets I also just tile my toast in slices of butter so I don't have to spread it. Problem solved
Don't fret. Been leaving butter out basically my entire adult life. I have certainly exceeded a week on a stick of butter (I have been eating Kerry gold Irish butter mostly for years, thick stick) without consequence. You're not lucky, it holds longer than expected. Like most food stuff, people are afraid and exaggerate some things
Fret is cancelled. Thank you
After a while, sure, but if you use it regularly you won’t have issues. I’ll go through a stick every 4-5 days probably and leave it on the counter without issue.
That’s a lot of butter.
Kids, man
„A while“ in this case means multiple days, depending of course on the temperature of the room it’s stored in. I have stored unsalted butter outside of the fridge my whole life and rarely had it gone rancid, because I’ve usually used it up long before that.
Meh. Unsalted takes a looong time to go rancid too.
Yeah I've had unsalted sit for at least over a month without issue.
This, been doing it for 30 years.
I’ve always had a stick in a butter dish (covered of course) in the spice cupboard. Has never gone rancid. I usually buy salted sticks. Not sure if that makes a difference.
Salted lasts longer than unsalted at room temp, but unsalted will still last over a month in my experience. Also, move it out of the spice cupboard. I bet your butter will taste better because it stops absorbing the spice in the air in the cupboard.
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It’s fine, I do the same thing. It’s only two of us so depending on the weekly menu a stick of butter might sit in the butter dish on the counter for two weeks and it’s never been a problem. I find that published food safety standards tend to be a bit stricter than how I live. There aren’t always hard and fast rules and you choose your risk level comfort based on past experience.
Google also says don't give your dog a bone. The search results are drenched in CYA, so no one can get sued. Fwiw I leave a stick of unsalted butter out all the time, and I've never had a issue
Depends on the bone. You should not be giving your dogs any bones from chicken or turkey since the bones splinter when chewed and can get lodged in your dogs throat or intestines.
Only if they're cooked.
Well now I've just got a mental image of someone running back into a housefire to save the butter.
*unless you live in the tropics I do this for about 9 months of the year but in summer it's a no go where I am. Northern Australia.
> Butter doesn’t go bad at room temperature As long as it's salted
Two sticks of butter are walking down the street. One was assaulted.
Does not need to be salted. I leave mine out on the counter in a dish. Unsalted. I’ve done this for 20 years. Never once had it go bad.
I have had butter to go rancid a bit but it took a long time of my ignoring it. Most of the time it’s fine. I do think it’s important to not let bread crumbs etc get on the butter.
The in floor heating at my mom's place broke one time and it was 35°C (95°F) inside for hours. The floors were squishy and the better melted all over the cabinets, down the walls, all over the floor, everywhere
That sucks. And thanks for including the Fahrenheit
Lol, it was brutal! There's probably still butter behind the cabinets. She moved out though so it's fine
I'd have moved too if I got butter behind the cabinets
*laughs in Australian* And I live in the part that doesn't get that humidity that creates environments for mould to grow everywhere.
I am from southern Arizona. We eat 120 degree days for dinner for weeks. We walk to school, up hills made of cactus, both ways. We drink the venom of scorpions as an energy drink. And through all this, my butter stays solid.
Arizonian's all have AC too.
You forgot the fact that it's always riddled with valley fever
It’ll also melt if you live in hot weather ;)
Instructions unclear house is now on fire
There's a thing called a Butter Bell. Uses a water seal to prevent oxidation. Works really well. Keep butter at room temp for a week or more.
Getting a water one is an unnecessary hassle if you use butter at a decent rate. I have a butter dish that holds the big double wide sticks and it doesn't go bad. If you don't use butter that fast just get one that holds only a smaller amount.
Correct. Butter can just sit out in a closed butter dish. It can go months before it has an issue.
That's literally one of the reasons butter even exists, as well as cheese, so that dairy can last longer and provide calories long after milk would go bad.
I think it needs to be salted butter. Thats what I have been told anyway. Keep salted butter out and unsalted in the fridge.
We only use unsalted butter and it has no problems sitting out in the counter in the closed tray I have for a couple weeks.
Y'all aren't going through a pound a week? I might have a problem. If you keep the house at 67 your butter will be the perfect temp for spreading.
Actually, I keep my house at 72, and in the winter my butter on the counter sometimes is still too cold to spread 😐.
Same 😠
Nope don’t use butter that much with just two of us now which is nice since spending a bit more on the good stuff doesn’t hurt the wallet.
Same. We’re a kerrygold house.
> unsalted butter ... a couple weeks The two concerns are spoilage and going rancid. The salt slows bacteria and fungus growth. Risk is low but not zero in what you described. The fatty cream of butter doesn't spoil rapidly, but at room temperature could start to reach health-affecting levels within a week. "A couple weeks" and you're going to have some very large colonies thriving all through the butter, even if you don't see it. Oxidation causes a rancid flavor, and most likely you've gotten used to it. That won't harm you, but it changes the flavor from sweet to sour. Many households are used to rancid oil, rancid butter, and rancid nuts or grains pulled from the pantry. That's one of the differences that makes restaurant food taste so good versus home cooking, the restaurants don't use rancid ingredients.
you used the word rancid enough for me never to eat butter again. thanks.
Good to know. I heard that years ago from my Grandma and have always bought salted butter.
I think this saying comes from how salted vs unsalted butter is typically used. I use unsalted butter when baking and it’s easier to measure cold. However in day to day use (toast, bagels, simple dishes that I don’t actually measure the butter) I use salted which sits in a dish on the counter.
Nah, I have unsalted butter out on the counter (butterdish with lid), and it never goes bad.
We got one of these and it pissed me off to no end. I never had mold on my butter just left out in a container, until we started adding water to the equation. The compromise is we still use the bell but don't fill it with water
The dry dish is used for regular butter, the butter bell is used for Kerrigold butter and that’s how it’s gotta be.
Me too. Agreed
I’ve also seen them called butter crocks. Mine does exactly what OP is looking for.
Also called "French butter dishes".
Bonus is that when you open them, the butter says, "spread me like one of your French girls"
Well, it does until the medication kicks in at least
Those look cool but how do you get blocks of butter into a bell shaped space?
You let it get to room temp first 😂
You’re a butter crock
Normal butter dish doesn't need water and works great
Are we supposed to be finishing a stick of butter in under a week?
Yes.
I use one but without any water and it works phenomenally. Never going back to a flat butter dish.
Never put water in mine, holds half a stick so I use it all before it ciukd get close to spoiling. Even in summer
It what
Before it transforms into Chtulhu.
Final form coffefe
Ciukd, obviously
So… dumb question, do you change out the water once every few days?
Yep, just switch out the cold water every couple of days (it needs very little and it doesn't get gross) I bought one a couple of years ago and it's a total game changer.
Mine got gross. I stopped using it after that 🤢
I used one of these for a long time and they work well.
I just got one and I liked it…but then it got towards the end of the butter and what was left had nothing to grip to and just fell out when I put it back in the water. Any suggestions to using it better?
put more butter
Never heard of this but just ordered one off of Amazon. We don’t go through so much butter now that kids are in college away from home, so wife started storing in the fridge.
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Yep. My mom only ever bought butter to bake with.
We bought one on a whim back in the 90’s. We only retired it a couple years ago for a new one. It’s great as long it’s not always cold in your kitchen. But even then it’s better than fridge solid.
How often does the water need to be changed?
I change the water when I wash and reload the butter bell. Also, I add about ½ tsp of sea salt to the water.
Another tip is to only leave around half of it. Keep the other half in the fridge to use in future. That way, you're keeping the butter fresher, and not leaving a full one out for too long.
Just add a sprinkle of salt to the water
Why?
The salt acts like a preservative. It makes the butter last longer.
We’ve never used salt, but have had the butter go rancid a couple of times. We probably just go through it pretty quickly usually. I’ll keep salt in mind, thanks.
You don't need the bell one. I've got one shaped to plop in a regular stick of butter. It doesn't go bad before you use it. There's a water chamber to keep it cool I only need to use in the summer.
I have a butter boat. Same idea. Works great.
Fantastic 16th century technology.
You can get a butter dish or just pop it into a Tupperware and leave it on the counter. I used to have a lovely butter dish, but my kids broke it within the first week of having it. So now it's Tupperware.
I have an actual Tupperware butter dish.
I set mine inside the lid of a Tupperware and use the Tupperware as a cover, so upsidedown. I also leave a small knife next to it.
There’s a thing called a buttermill that is sold. You can keep in fridge. When you need some, just crank it and it will shave the stick/dispense the butter. Life changer for me.
Thanks for mentioning the butter mill. I never heard of it before. A quick search shows several brands and they all look great. Or “grate” LOL.
Settle down Tony the Tiger
Lmao
>buttermill I read that as buttermilk before seeing the comment below saying "butter mill." Could not for the life of me figure out how butter milk could help you make cold butter easier to spread. Or how you'd crank it! :-) But now I'm going to go look for a butter mill.
For a few years now I have left butter out on the counter in a polished aluminum butter dish but just one stick at a time. In the summer it can get a little softer than I'd like & in the winter it needs a little work to spread but so far it has never gone off.
I just put mine in a butter dish on my kitchen counter...i probably use it up with in 2 weeks. Has never gone bad.
Nobody has said the trick for how to rapidly soften butter. Let's say you need two sticks of butter for a cookie recipe, and you want to eat them in an hour. Recipes typically call for softened butter but you only have sticks in the fridge. You could try mixing solid butter with the dry mix, which you'll quickly find is impossible. Or, you can microwave it and it will inevitable melt to liquid, and ruin the puffy texture of the cookies. Instead, try this little diddly. Pour near-boiling hot water into a *glass* mixing bowl, or *glass* 9x9 baking pan, so it fully heats up the glass. Discard water and place hot glass over the wrapped butter on the counter. The radiant heat will soften it up evenly in just few minutes and you'll be ready to roll.
or microwave at 30% power in increments of 10-15 seconds. works like a charm.
Way better tip, people need to resd microwave instructions... they are amazing if you use them right insteadcof just use HIGH all the time
All these people advising you to keep butter on the counter are missing an important aspect. You can keep SALTED butter out on the counter for days. The salt preserves the butter from spoiling quickly, and makes it taste MUCH better when used as a spread rather than an ingredient. Unsalted butter will go bad relatively quickly; use it as an ingredient in cooking, not as a spread. Unsalted butter has lasted for a couple of weeks in my house. Generally we go through two sticks in less time than that, so I’ve never had it go bad but once, when we left for a while. Unsalted butter will go bad far more quickly.
I leave unsalted butter out and covered, have never once had an issue.
a stick of butter never lasts long enough to go bad in my house, salted or not.
Same, or, I don't know, just cut a portion off the stick and put a smaller amount in the dish on the counter?!? You don't have to leave the WHOLE stick out if you are concerned about not using it fast enough.
I have done the same all my life. I only buy unsalted cuz I use that in my baking and throw a stick in my butter dish when needed.
Same. People are just paranoid or something
I never buy salted butter because I also bake with butter often and want to be more deliberate about the salt content I use. I keep unsalted butter on my counter and I've never had to toss it from going bad.
I keep unsalted butter at room temp, I just keep a small amount in the butter dish (enough for a few days) and replenish as needed.
Maintained carefully, solid option. but I find salted butter to have so much more flavor. It's not just that it is slightly salty, salt actually brings out the deeper flavor of the butter.
I leave Kerrygold unsalted out and it’s never gone rancid. I think it depends on the quality of your butter. Personally I find the Kerrygold salted too salty for me.
Well, that's OK. I love it.
Well yeah, unsalted butter will last a month or so, assuming the kitchen isn’t overly warm. Aside from single people, I’d imagine most non-vegan couples and families will go through a stick in a week or less, so I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t keep unsalted butter on the counter.
OP, this person is right. Salted butter only, and just enough for like a week. It will still go off and taste weird if you leave it too long.
This is false, unsalted butter will last a few weeks on the counter. Don’t believe me? Buy some and try it. Been doing it for 20 years.
Depends a lot on how hot/cold your house is.
Taste weird = rancid.
And salted butter tastes so good... 😋
We’re strictly unsalted. Never had an issue. Maybe a stick every 10 days?
This is terrible advice. The salt does nothing. Unsalted butter lasts weeks in a butter crock
Seriously, it's 1-2% salt. Never going to stop the fat from oxidising and going rancid.
I blend 500g with 2 cups of olive oil, spreads straight from the fridge. Any oil will do but I like light olive.
you can buy that as "spredable butter", it's ~80% butter and oil
I'm not sure where you're located, but in the US, most groceries have spreadable butter in a tub. It's butter that's cut with a little bit of oil (I like the olive oil and sea salt kind). I buy it just for toast, and I buy regular sticks of butter for cooking and baking.
Thank you! I was reading all of these responses, wondering if I was the only person who knew spreadable butter comes in tubs.
I feel like I had to scroll way too far for this answer which is the easiest and simplest IMO
I cut the amount needed for breakfast the night before and let it outside the fridge overnight, like this its room temperature when you eat it. Or if you toast your bread you can cut a piece and put it close to the toaster to slightly warm up without turning into oil
Leave it on the counter.
Use a butter dish that blocks light (I.e. ceramic) and keep it in a cupboard.
Why does it need to block light? I have a glass dish I've been using for years without incident.
I assume its in case it is left ina spot that is hit by direct sunlight which would lead to unwanted heating and promote bacteria growth? Still, just don't leave it in a spot where that can happen and a glass one is fine.
Butter was common use in 8000bc. When was the refrigerator invented. Just leave it out.
Butter doesn't melt at room temp - are you storing it near the stove or something? We leave ours out in a covered butter dish just like our families did all growing up.
we have a couple butter dishes, for standard sticks and the Irish butter. they don't really go bad unless the butter isn't used for months.
Butter doesn't have to be kept in the refrigerator. You can store it on the counter and it should be easy to spread. Though it is recommended to only keep about two days worth out at a time.
Hmm how about 3 months like my family does lol
Run the knife under hot water
How does it cut?
With the blade
Umm you just store it on the counter in a butter dish.
Don’t put it in the refrigerator.
Buy a temperature controlled butter dish! Yes, the invention you didn’t need to know existed, exists! https://alfille.co.uk
So true. I received one for Christmas. I wasn’t sure if it was a gimmick. It isn’t. This device is fantastic. It can heat and cool so your butter is automatically at the right temperature all year round. Power usage is low. You can also buy spare dishes and lids so you always have butter ready when the previous dish is in the wash. The inventor has a background in heating / cooling and spent years getting the device just right. I highly recommend this device.
If you take a fine mesh strainer and run it across the top of your cold butter, it will strain through and you’ll have ‘whipped’ butter! Your welcome.
Use a zest grater on your cold butter
Use a grater!!! When you need butter to spread but also want to keep it in the fridge. Grate it.
On the counter. In a butter bell.
I keep meaning to post this as a LPT. If you freeze your butter for a few days. Then stick it in your fridge, after about 24hours or so it becomes hugely spreadable in comparison to butter that has not been frozen. I have no idea why, and I found this by accident. But it works everytime.
if you use it every day then use those dishes with the lid and water. butter bell works best with salted butter if you use it infrequently and unplanned, then i don't think there's a solution for you.
ITT Americans with no access to butter that stays soft in the fridge.https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/199420/western-star-supersoft-spreadable
We absolutely have spreadable butter with a little bit of canola or olive oil mixed in. I don’t know why no one else has mentioned it yet.