I read the best baking butter is the firmest butter. I am comparing Land O'Lakes and Breyer's (?).
Land O'Lakes has more yellow coloring and is ridgedly firm even at room temperature.
Breyers seems to act more like a butter I recognize. It softens as it warms to a really soft, oozy, consistancy. It also has less yellow coloring. It also costs more. I Breyers better for baking?
Butter is butter. It doesn't have coloring added. Butter does vary in the amount of water it contains with some premium and imported brands being lower in water and quite a bit more expensive. I haven't noticed a bit of difference between brands of domestic butter when it comes to baking. I use Land 'o Lakes, store brands like Kroger's, and butter from Costco and Gordon Food Service. It's all the same to me. The US Department of Agriculture sets standards for butter. You can read all about it here:
Butter might be butter -- but Amish Butter tastes like butter of my childhood. [I've churned a few, but not many -- my little arms wore out my grandmother's patience ...] I try to purchase it whenever I can, which is about 3-4 times a year when I get to the market that sells it. It comes from Ohio.
I use the ordinary butters for baking, mostly Costco's different brands of salted and unsalted. It still doesn't compare in taste to butters I remember in Europe either in the 70's & 80's.
Dee
The USDA standards for butter are based in large part on differences in taste. I agree that there are flavor differences from brand to brand. I understood the OP's question to be more of a function one: that is, are there differences in the melting profiles of various brands and does that make a difference in the baked goods?
I live in SW Ohio and there are some Amish people in the vicinity. A small farmer's market sells Amish baked goods close to my house. They must be from a line of people with poor baking skills! I bought a pie once and it was quite unimpressive. I have had Amish cheese from NE Ohio (Wayne County) that was quite good. Where does your butter come from?
I would agree to a point. If you're using butter in a cookie recipe or as a binding agent for crumb pie crusts, I have yet to taste a difference. If butter is part of the flavor you're going for, like in buttercream frosting or certain candies, quality is noticeable.
I treat butter in similar ways to cinnamon. I'll use Cassia bark when the cinnamon is one of many flavors. If the point of the taste is cinnamon, I'll use real cinnamon for the extra boost of flavor. The exception to this is in my doughnuts because, well, it's 2g in a recipe that makes 36 doughnuts so it's not like I'm gonna break the bank using Ceylon cinnamon.
I don't have the package right now, but as I recall, it is Madison, which is Lake Co., but there are some Madisonville's, etc in Wayne County listed.
Years ago I visited the Amish in Ohio and they welcomed me into their homes while I was looking for some quilts. The inside of the homes I saw was poor compared to only one Amish home that I've visited in Lancaster. I love their butter, but I oft wonder about it due to this observation. I live in the Shenandoah Valley VA where there are a lot of Mennonites and a lot of quilt making going on, but I've not seen any for sale that I would say was good quality. I wonder sometimes if the 'good ole days' were that good.
I might add that I do use Horizon Organic Butter for the table when I run out of the Amish butter and I cannot taste a difference in it from the common butter brands.
Dee
My sister lives in Lake County and I have been to Madison several times. Madison is the home Bluestone Perennials
Butter in Europe. That's called "terroir". It tastes different because of what the cows eat. Chicken egg yolks are deeply darker in Italy than here in the US, too. Again, it's what the animal eats, climate, et cetera. The same goes for plants. Like, you can't take an old Pinot Noir vine from the chalky soil of Burgundy, move it to the sandy soil in Florida, and get even close to the same result. I'd bet that if you brought a cow from the US to Europe that after awhile butter made from the transplant cow's milk would not taste different from the local stuff. As to a difference between Amish American and regular American butters, it has to be the way the land is treated by the Amish (versus large corporations' treatment), and perhaps hand-churning ina wooden churn has some impact on texture (as opposed to chuning in HUGE stainless-steel machines).
Butter isn't butter, there is butter and butter, some butter have coloring added.
/Gabriel Wallden
What physical differences (aside for taste which is accounted for in the USDA grading system) in the final product could one expect from using one brand over another? That is the essence of the OP's question.
I believe I've given this opinion before, but will repeat myself if I have: Butter I buy retail takes at least 3-4 times the length of time to melt in the microwave as my Amish butter -- Vox Humana: the brand is "Amish Country" mfg. Minerva Dairy Inc., Minerva, Ohio 44657 [I had previously stated erroneously where I 'thought' it was mfg'd.
I use this Amish butter for two purposes, bread and butter & melting it for white popcorn bought at an Mennonite store.
Dee Dee
I have been to Minerva many times but my visits were years ago. I pass through the area every year or two. I should stop and check it out.
As soon as butter hit $5 per lb. at the supermarket, I switched to the local restaurant purveyor at $2.65 per lb. The no name unsalted butter is indistinguishable from what is available at the supermarket. Hope this helps.
Fred The Good Gourmet
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