Butter Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Butter | Price Points | Epicurious

hi I'm Josh Windsor and I'm a butter expert it's nice butters delicious so what I have in front of me here is two unsalted butter so what is butter butter is the preservation of the milk fat that comes from milk there are two things that I can notice visually on this the first is the shape weirdly enough there are actually two different shapes on the sticks for butter printing this divides in the u.s. among the Rockies so on the eastern side of the Rockies they're these long if the skinnier sticks whereas on the western side of the Rockies they're a little more compact and squat this is what we call an eastern package whereas this is more block form the other thing that I'm noticing here is color so this one here on our left our B butter has a more yellowish hue to it whereas this one's a little lighter closer to cream coloring on it the coloring in milk actually comes from carotene which is same kind of thing that colors carrots that comes from the green pasture that cows or sheep or goats or wherever we're getting our milk sources from graze on cows don't really do anything with carotene so it can show up in the milk and actually color the butter the other way you can get color into butter is by adding coloring to the butter so looking at it right now I'm not really sure if this is a pasture butter or if it's just a butter with food coloring in it I think it's time we give these two a taste this is cutting nice and smoothly so the first thing I'm going to do is smell it I smell is a good indicator of what's going on on the flavor on this looks like some light buttery notes on this a little bit of Tang there's a smooth texture to this it coats the palate really nicely it spreads over the tongue and then finishes quickly there's no saltiness on it that tang that I picked up when I was smelling it earlier I'm not picking up on the power at all in fact mainly at all that's coming across on this is like a little bit of a cook to nuttiness and some of that delicate butter flavor this is a quality butter now let's see what's going on with butter a now this cuts much softer it could just be a temperature or there could be a little bit higher butterfat content in this the more butterfat there is in a butter and so the big the big difference that's standing out to me in terms of of this butter as it plays on on the mouth is is the texture and how it coats the palate and then cleans up and that is usually an indication of the content of butter fat that is in the butter and the US by law butter has to be at least eighty percent butterfat in Europe however butter needs to be at least eighty two percent so often when you see european-style on a package of butter it means that that butter fat content is 82 percent or higher the greater the butter fat content in the butter the higher the price point on that so usually when you have a bit more creamy mouth coating feel to the butter it is a european-style or higher butter fat content the smoother is going to cut and again that delicate light aroma of butter is what's really coming through here which is what you would expect on an unsalted butter unsalted butter is tend to have a more milder flavor than than some of their other types and counterparts all right let's give it a try the texture is still coating the eye entire inside of the mouth it's a little more oily on the finish but still cleans up really nicely the primary use or where most people are using unsalted butter is in baking or cooking applications but usually when you're baking you want to control the salt by adding the salt yourself as opposed to relying on the salt content of the butter and so unsalted butter czar a prime candidate for all of your baking applications as well as some of your classic French sauces like Bernays hollandaise beurre blanc and so forth but this one is a little creamier has a bit more thick mouthfeel to it and makes me think that it has a higher butter fat content and maybe in the European style I'm gonna go with this being the higher price point and this being the lower price point so a moment of truth let's see which one is more expensive or how wrong I may be yeah that is a significant price difference which you actually don't see very often in unsalted butter so we're looking at the two ends of this of this spectrum here and I'm guessing the big change in these two is that butter fat content that is a really big driver on on the price of unsalted butter don't just let price be your driver on which butter you're going to purchase as I said these are both quality butters this one is you know if you do want an unsalted butter to spread on toast or to really let the flavor shine through if you're making some type of buttered pasta dish this is a really good choice this one I would use more in pastry baking it's probably going to create a great pie crust or something like a laminated pastry like a croissant so in front of me right now I have two salted butters and the main difference between salted butters and unsalted butter ziz surprisingly salt and that's about all there is in the difference between these two categories of butter salted butters have a more robust flavor salt as a flavor enhancer and some of the delicate flavors and butter get muted when you don't have salt added to it salted butters are typically not used in baking and cooking purposes and more as a topping or spread I don't see any real flakes of salt in either of these so I'm guessing that these are both uniformly distributed salt on them and the color differentiation again we have a yellow err butter here on our right with butter a and we have a paler color butter on butter be this could be seasonality or again it could be added food coloring to the butter based upon the coloring and the shape I'm thinking this is probably going to be a higher price point but it's more the shape as a driver on this one for me because I think it's appealing to a market that is looking for a more artisanal product I'm gonna start with butter a this time around this nice little scoop I'm next I'm gonna give it a smell well this is an incredibly mild butter there isn't a lot of aroma coming off of it maybe a hint of sweet cream but not much else is on this on the on the nose all right so let's give it a taste this is a very firm butter but it sits at room temperature there's there's a lot of body to it it takes a little while to dissolve on the tongue it doesn't spread around the mouth like like our last two unsalted butter in terms of the mouthfeel though I think this is probably in the American range so somewhere around 80% but it's a little difficult to tell just because of how firm the texture is on it so I'm tasting a stronger butter flavor than I was getting on the aroma from this there's a slight salting on this so I guess this is in the lightly - slightly salted category the texture is really different than I've tasted on the other two butters so far whereas the texture on this one is a little tight it's a little firmer it doesn't melt on the tongue and spread across my mouth and the way that the other two butters do and it finishes just a little oily on the end there so the texture is really the big driver on this one for me yeah so let's go ahead and try B and see how these two stack up there's a little bit of flakiness on the outside of this the texture on B is going to be slightly different than the texture on a because of the flaking on it I'm thinking it's gonna actually be a little smoother again a very delicate slight aroma here I get a bit of cream and a little bit of butter on it but not a lot nothing overpowering so let's give it a try so if I had to make a guess between the price difference on these two I'm going to say that butter a is a higher price point butter than butter B and again it's gonna come down to packaging for me even though there's a big difference in texture and how these butters taste in this case these salad butters marketing and market preferences are really driving the price on them [Music] so we have a and B here a is 1998 and 339 that is a whopping difference between those two just judging on the the flavor and the texture alone my everyday butter on toast I would go with butter B and butter a is something that I would preserve for very unique applications where I want the the butter to be incorporating into the flavors of a more complicated dish alright now we're moving on to a more complex category these are two cultured butters cultured butter is butter in which the cream has been cultures so culturing a butter is going to make it more aromatically complex typically hallmarks of cultured butter are going to be a slight Tang enos due to the acidification that happens during the culturing process as well as some of the byproducts of that fermentation are chemicals known as diacetyl and lactone which are really in conjunction with each other what we think of as butter flavor originally all butter was cultured up until about the mid 19th century and the reason that is is the way that you get cream from milk is you would have to let it sit overnight so cream is a milk product in which all of the milk fat or butter fat is aggregated and floated to the top of milk and that is just a high concentration of the milk fat or the butter fat but that takes time and temperature so usually this was done with the evening milk so after the cows were milked it was set in a vat or a canister of some kind allowed to cool in the evening temperatures and in the morning the cream had come to the top so this is where we get the phrase the cream rises to the top or if you're Irish top of the morning because the cream is on the top of the milk but what had happened overnight is that that lactic acid bacteria that's in the environment had settled into the cream in the milk and begun that fermentation process so all cream was fermented or culture to some degree so let's jump in and take a look at these two butters in front of us right away butter B is jumping out to me it is in this molded shape and there's there's a press cow on it this thing is adorable that is a butter that is intended to be presented there's some effort and a mold that that is used in order to get the butter in this format that we haven't seen any of the other butters we've talked about so far so this is definitely not a utility butter this is a butter that is meant to sit on a plate you can't look at a butter and tell whether it's been cultured or not cultures are microbes and then moving on to a this is a presentation that we've seen before this is butter in its black form coloring we're on the slider yellow end of the spectrum I would say cream or a crew on this there are no flakes in it there's no this is not a compound butter and again it's a very pleasing visual presentation but not as compact and designed as we see in butter beads I'm going to start with butter a alright that is a nice smooth cut check it for aroma and right away there is a very strong buttery smell that is jumping off of this sample here and that is a good indication that you're dealing with a cultured butter as I said culturing a butter increases what we think of as the classic butter flavor and that should really be strong on the aroma so culture butters when they're put out on a plate should actually fill the room a little bit with that buttery aroma that's nice the texture is really good on this it's creamy this is a salted butter a little heavier on the salt and what I call a lightly salted butter no flakes on this I'm not getting any crystalline crunch on this so this would be what you'd see typically marked it as a cultured salted butter okay let's try butter B here which I'm really curious what's going on inside this butter in the way the the butter is melting on the tongue and moving around the palate I would say this is probably also a European style butter this is not in the 80% range but this is probably in the 82 to 83 percent butterfat on that oh there's some smokiness on this I'm guessing that what this is is smoked salt on this particular butter it's cleaning up nicely coating the palate nicely I'm also going to say that this is a European style butter we haven't talked about length but this one has length all of that is lingering on my palate it's actually ending a little garlicky and chive e on here so there might be quite a bit that has been added to the butter and I'm going to say that butter B is a more expensive butter so let's take a look oh those are pretty close those are so you can see immediately that we've gone up in price on both of these particular products again culturing adds a significant amount of money to the final product and that is because of the amount of time and the amount of labour that is involved with with culturing the cream some of these additional features of this butter drove the price just a little bit higher on it these are not cooking butters that with that price point and these at these added flavors they would get lost when you were using them in a sauce or in baking so these are really butters that are intended to be standing standing on their own now we're moving on to the weird wonderful world of non cow butters or non bovine butters so you can make butter from any mammals milk that produce that produces milk fat or butter fat there is yak milk there's water buffalo milk I've even seen reindeer milk used to make butter but most of the butters that you're gonna find out there that are not cow are either gonna be goat or they're going to be sheep looking at these two butters right away I noticed that there is a big difference in coloration butter a has a yellow or hue to it than butter B which has a white you this actually tells me a lot about these butters or starts to leave me to think that they might be different types of butter remember earlier when we were talking about carotene in the green leafy pasture well that carotene and cow's milk is not used by cows so it passes through into the milk and then there butters are some shade of yellow depending on how much clarity and was in their diet goats however use all that carotene to produce vitamin A and so goat's milk is always going to be this clear or alabaster white even when it's not in its milk form so goat milk cheeses go letters are often an alabaster white hue so this on the left I'm thinking is probably a goat's milk in terms of the shape and the size on this the big difference that I'm seeing is one isn't a block and one is in the circular form this probably came from a plastic tub and so this is bulk butter that has just been shaped by the packaging what that it's in and not printed like a traditional butter it may indicate that it's a smaller producer that doesn't have access to expensive packaging equipment or it may just be that this is a choice and easier to distribute all right it's very soft it's a very clean cut it's probably cuts a little bit more like lard than it does like butter the aroma is really light like an uncultured butter so I'm guessing that this is not a cultured butter this is a lot of texture though it melts really quickly on the tongue lightly salted a little bit of butter notes what's a good butter thinking now that this might be a goat milk and that a little bit of coloring has been added to it to make it look more like what people expect butter to be which would lower the price point for me all right let's try butter B all right so this is a firmer butter it spoons off almost like ice cream on that in its thickness it's a little what we call gummy in its in its texture this smells like butter there's a definite butter aroma on it so I'm gonna guess that this is a cultured butter as well there's a lot of flavors building on this one there's actually a little bit of fruitiness like I get some apple notes on it the salt content is probably in the slightly salted range texture is good has very good mouthfeel and there's some length on this on it yeah this is this is much more of a butter that that I would use for topping bread then then say this butter on on the right hair butter a I would put my bet on the higher price point being butter B all right let's see if my hunch is about goat butter our rate oh yeah that's a significant difference on that this is has a lot more flavor complexity and so you'd want that butter to stand on its own it's also a little bit more delicate and spreadable in that so it's gonna really be something that you use as a topping whereas this has a really good butter fat content the flavor is a little more delicate so if you are looking to use goat butter in your in your baking or your cooking I would recommend this one for that application so now we're looking at non-dairy butters these are butters that are not made from milk and also a category that I'm not as strong on being a dairy person myself again we have two classic presentations of the product definite difference in coloring on these this one is on the white side there's also some brown dusting across it said it's try it it's not uniform in color butter B is much closer to what we think of as butter although it's still a little on the browner side then on the yellow side let's see here which one do I want to try first I'm gonna go with this one alright that is a nice smooth cut on it I'm guessing this is gonna be creamy on the on the palate there is some strong butter flavor on this there's also a little bit of sweetness that is reminiscent of coconut so I'm guessing there might be some coconut oil that was used in the in the production of this but a much stronger butter traditional butter smell than I would expect to find in a product like this it could be one of two things at this point there could actually be some fermentation that is creating that diacetyl that we talked about earlier that gives that real butter aroma or there might actually just be some to acetal added to this definitely salty there's a bit of a nuttiness on it as well and again that butter flavor is definitely coming through doesn't come across as overly greasy it melts really nicely on the tongue this is a pretty quality product and it actually seems like it's designed to mimic butter to some extent so this is this is really designed as a vegan butter substitute now let's try B and see what it has to offer this is a much softer butter til very creamy smooth cut it's not much for an aroma this is an unerring addict butter maybe a hint of coconut no nuttiness on it or butter flavors this is a salted butter the salt is not flakes salt it's definitely uniform throughout there's a slight butter flavor to it but mainly this is about texture I'm guessing this is probably closer to a margin or margarine then and probably marketed as a margarine may be a vegan butter on it just by the coloring but this one is really probably intended mainly as a as a baking substitute for for vegans than it is as a spread I am going to venture a guess that butter a is the higher price point between the two mainly because of the flavor development it didn't have some of the astringency or sharp sharpness that had a diacetyl did so I think they're developing this through some kind of culturing process which would definitely add to the cost on it and that would probably be the biggest driver on the price between the two a moment of truth here I was saying oh [Music] that's a significant difference here we see a butter where the price point is really being driven by the flavor profile that is adding some of the complexity of butter to product weather or to a dish whether it is being topped on a baguette or whatnot then this would be a good option for you if you're looking for butter that is a vegan butter that is more about baking or substitute for butter for cookie recipes or baked breads then I would look to the lower price point butter I hope you learned that quality and price are not necessarily correlated with butter you can find great quality butters at a high price point and you can find great quality butters at a low price point so I hope you take this knowledge out and really explore all the types of butter that are available to you [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 865,066

Rating: 4.8401022 out of 5

Keywords: butter, cheap vs expensive, price points, butter expert, taste test, butter taste test, butter comparison, expensive butter, cheap butter, butter vs margarine, soft butter, hard butter, european butter, american butter, different butter, gourmet butter, fancy butter, imported butter, unsalted butter, salted butter, butter chemistry, what is butter, how is butter made, butter tasting, josh windsor, how to buy butter, nicest butter, best butter, eat butter, epicurious

Id: LZWSjNPiZsg

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019