A few weeks ago I posted about planning a blind butter tasting contest and got some great suggestions. Original post here.
Here is how it went!
Butters selected:
- Nordic Creamery - Summer Butter - (Unsure if salted or unsalted) -(Wisconsin)
- Quickies - Cows Whey Butter - Slightly Salted (UK)
- Beurre De Baratte - with Guerande Sea Salt Crystals (France)
- Hartzlers - Salted (Ohio)
- Kerrygold - Salted (Ireland)
- Les Pres Sales - Camargue - with Coarse Sea Salt (Belgium)
- Parkay - Margarine (Illinois)
- Weyauwega - Hand-rolled Salted Butter (Wisconsin)
- Pepe Saya - Cultured Butter - Salted (Amish) (Pennsylvania)
- Ferrarini (Unsure if salted or unsalted) (Italy)
- Lurpak - Salted (Denmark)
Scoring method: 8 people participated. Each person voted for their favorite and their second favorite. Favorite = 2 points; second favorite = 1 point.
Other notes:
- Butter was tasted on thin baguette slices. One family member chose to eat butter alone, without bread or shame.
- Wanted to use only salted butter to keep the playing field even, but some family members contributed butters and I did not check two of their packaging to confirm if salted (see notes above)
- Tea was suggested as a palate cleanser. My family unanimously selected beer instead and showed no interest in reconsidering. I raised the issue briefly and then let it go.
- Total cost. It was $4 - $12/ butter. My best guess, all in, is $100 for just the butters. Bread and beer on top.
- All butter served at room temp
Results:
0 points
- Parkay - Margarine (Illinois)
- Weyauwega - Hand-rolled Salted Butter (Wisconsin)
- Ferrarini (Unsure if salted or unsalted) (Italy)
- Hartzlers - Salted (Ohio)
- Kerrygold - Salted (Ireland)
1 point
- Nordic Creamery - Summer Butter - (Unsure if salted or unsalted) -(Wisconsin)
- Lurpak - Salted (Denmark)
4 points
- Quickies - Cows Whey Butter - Slightly Salted (UK)
5 points
- Pepe Saya - Cultured Butter - Salted (Amish) (Pennsylvania)
6 points
- Les Pres Sales - Camargue - with Coarse Sea Salt (Belgium)
7 points (WINNER! WINNER!)
- Beurre De Baratte - with Guerande Sea Salt Crystals (France)
Hello fellow butter enthusiast! I love this as a family activity.
And the second I saw buerre de baratte in your list I had a strong suspicion about what the outcome would be. If you get a chance to try bordier I highly recommend it! Also the book Butter: A Rich History by Elaine Khosrova is genuinely a joy to read.
Is Bordier hard to find? I went to two stores with imported butters and they didn’t have this. Not sure if it just poor timing. Thanks for the book rec, I haven’t heard of that and am incredibly interested in reading it!
These guys do pre orders every two weeks. They send an email with Link to preorder. https://definegourmet.com/
I found a place that imports it, my 5kg brick of butter just arrived yesterday actually. I’d share a pic but the subreddit won’t let me 😂
As others have pointed out, you have to go out of your way to get it in the states, and what you’re ordering is the size of a bar of soap. Worth it in my opinion!
Separately, if you like a little bit of a challenge, there’s a US-based farm making some of the most spectacular butter I’ve ever had. It’s only sold by Saxelby cheese - Animal Farm Butter. It’s released on a rigid and competitive schedule (I had to try to get it 4 or 5 times). Again, worth it in my opinion
I recently tried buerre de baratte and found it flaky to spread and the texture upon eating was also not very creamy. I don't know if I've just conditioned myself too much for Kerrygold or what, but my takeaway was I wouldn't be buying it again.
I'm also not a salted butter guy, so that added to my dislike of it.
Bordier is what I get. I haven't found a better butter in a store.
Dang. I thought kerrygold was good. Lol. Evidently I'm missing out.
The feedback was that Kerrygold is a solid every day butter. Just not the best! I think a learning for next time is to break it up into categories - low price point / easily available butters versus high cost and hard to find butter. That might be more telling.
Good to know. Thanks! I will search out another on your list.
Yeah I was going to say...I buy weyuwega in Wisconsin because it's a really solid product that's very cheap (cheaper than land o lakes). Not really sure how fair it is to compare it to fancy French butter.
Edit: I'm agreeing with you not arguing
This is actually what most Irish people think of Kerrygold too. We have much better regional butters, they're just, well, regional so you don't see them abroad. If anything, the extent to which Kerrygold is hyped in the US seems weird to us.
It is so much better than the standard US butters, and there aren't really any other good butters with as wide of distribution within the US so it's had the opportunity to gain a large word-of-mouth presence.
The large scale US grocery stores I'm familiar with like Wal-Mart usually carry 3-4 varieties of butter, of which Kerrygold is generally the "premium" option.
In comparison to the general options we get it is definitely better.
Dunnes taking the 454g Glenstal out of their stores has been a personal attack on me
To give you an idea, I used to buy the regular butter until I got sick of how bland it was and the fact it just didnt melt very effectively. I noticed a decrease in quality a few years ago that made me want to try something better, and Kerrygold is the top of the line for grocery store butter.
Comparatively, Kerrygold actually melts, has flavor, and can be spread. It might not be anything special in the land of Irish butters, but in the US, it's a cut above everything else.
Everyone I know here loves it. I never see regional butters unless at an exclusive farmers market which is rare.
Need another tester? I'm in!
This could be a fun recurring thing. Different categories of butter uses. If you can taste the differences or favorites for dimple baking. melted, used for sweets/desserts, savory compound butter, cinnamon sugar butter, etc.
How many points did the Kerrygold get? I don’t see it in the results.
Unfortunately no points for Kerrygold — but a few thoughts — we only had 8 participants so the numbers are low to start. We also stacked it up against butter 2 or 3 times the price so I’m not sure that a fair comparison. The feedback was that Kerrygold is really good and a good butter at an everyday price point, just not the best butter out there.
Zero. It’s on the list at the bottom of the group with zero points.
I still love it. If I could buy insane French butter at my grocery store I probably would, but that's just not the reality.
Exactly
I mean compared to like land o lakes or whatever store brand butter it's incredible lol.
I got lambasted on here the other day for saying compared to a lot of European butters it’s nothing special, with them dragging up pointless awards and so on.
I’ll cook with it, sure, but to spread on stuff there are much, much better options.
Love it for cooking and baking in the same way that I love Kirkland olive oil- it's consistent, reliable, reasonably priced, and noticeably better than cheaper options. But if it's for a spread or dip, you can definitely taste the difference with the more expensive options.
Thanks for the input. Now I know.
It’s always the top recommended butter by every blog and influencer. I’ve never enjoyed it though
It’s nice to bake with because it’s consistent.
And a lot of those are because of sponsorships, so take that with a grain of (sea)salt.
Ya I see now. I'll be trying others in the future!
Kerrygold is a good everyday supermarket butter. It's not a good butter though
Kerrygold is a damn solid supermarket butter…which I was happy to buy at €3.75 but will not buy at €5.49, haha
Yeah it’s nowhere near as good as French butter
I'll be finding some French butter asap😀
Question to anyone in these comments: what's a better butter than Kerrygold that's a similar price or less?
Easily this. Same price as Kerrygold, $5 per brick.
https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/cultured-salted-butter-053720
I've been hearing about this for months but they never have it :c
Even the link says "not available"
It isn't always there, for sure. It's been on/off for years. Like most things at TJ, it might be seasonal or inconsistent supply. I think I bought a huge stack a couple months ago in Oct
Came here to say this, so good for the price and as a daily butter
I'm always at TJ's so I'll have to keep an eye out for it. Damn, I was just there yesterday too 😭
That's the thing: kerrygold isn't the best, but it is probably the best at its price point.
**In America
Definitely not worth the €1.50 (now €2.10!) over own brand, or the €0.50 over Glenstal/Ór.
Kerrygold is pretty much the floor for acceptable/decent butter, but it's nothing noteworthy. Try some French butter.
I’ve been saying Kerrygold is garbage for years and everybody (especially on Reddit) has rebuked me for it. I’m so glad OP posted this!
OP and the testers aren't saying it's garbage.
They’re not saying it’s not garbage either. The truth is we don’t know.
Nonetheless, Kerrygold tastes like the floor of a barn. Literally. I’m not saying that just to disparage—that’s actually what it tastes like to me: dirty, musky livestock.
No, they literally said it's good for the price-point.
See your doctor.
Nah, I’ll just buy butter I like.
It's not garbage. It's acceptable, especially for cooking or backup butter.
Kerrygold salted sucks ass. It’s not cultured. It’s a marketing gimmick. All these people that say they love kerrygold are just nostalgic. The capitalism enshitiffication knows no bounds. Unsalted, however, is actually still cultured butter. Still not worth the money, imho, but you can taste for yourself for the low price of $5.59 for 8oz. That’s $11/lb for you followers of shrinkflation.
Edit: just google it, people. Im not making this shit up.
So what do you recommend? I don't know what to buy?
It’s just a matter of budget, availability and use case. Look for “cultured” or French (European) style butters. I find them on sale, and I buy them specifically for uses where I really want fresh, crème flavor and raw butter flavor like just schmear on fresh bread or a radish sandwich. If it’s for baking, or cooking, it doesn’t matter so much imho.
Ok, cool. Just gimme a brand and I'll try it? Thanks.
Trader Joes Cultured Salted Butter, from Brittany, France.
https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/cultured-salted-butter-053720
Salty much? Do you have a reccomendation for the group or just had to get that out?
lol, yes I’m definitely salty! And yes, it needs to be heard. Kerrygold changed, and no one seems to know that they did. Before that change, I was a believer and a buyer. It was a decent butter, cheaper than the European options. But they leveraged that brand into lower cost product and its DEFINITELY not the same as it was. If you want to buy it, buy unsalted, it still has some flavor. But there are so many better options, even in suburban supermarkets.
I’ve been hearing complaints about Kerrygold more frequently recently. I get Plugrà. I’m no aficionado but enjoy it at the price point.
Is the Beurre de Baratte the Isigny Ste Mere with the blue label? If so, that’s my absolute favorite!
La Beurre Bordier and Bellevaire are both amazing as well. French cultured butter is amazing stuff
Yes when I said Beurre de Baratte I did mean the Isigny Ste Mère. You’re the second person who has mentioned Bordier, I’m going to need to find it to try!
I'm confused - are the buerre de baratte and Isigny the same butter under different labels? I recently discovered "good" butter and bought several kinds, including the baratte and the isigny. Ty!
Edit: I read further in and found the answer! I bought both the Isigny and the Rodolphe de Meunier.
Your family seems really fun and I'm a little worried about the person who chose to do a whole butter tasting without any bread
Hahah yeah we had questions but to be honest, she took it very seriously so it was allowed.
I love bread. But I love butter more. I’d certainly do the taste test without bread. Then I’d supplement after it was over with bread and more of my favorite butter.
now you need to try Le Beurre Bordier
That appears to be the consensus, I’ll need to find it!
I first had beurre de baratte at a 3 Michelin star restaurant over a decade ago. We asked what their butter was because it was SO good and so different than what we were used to at the time. Still a favorite in our house and we’re happy it is more readily available these days. It used to be like finding a pot of gold when we came across a place to purchase it.
fwiw beurre de baratte is a style (old-school churned rather than industrially extracted), not a brand or specific butter
Yup! Am aware. OP didn’t seem to mention the brand and the restaurant served the same one we have found.
It’s the blue label Insigny St Mere - sorry for leaving that out! Is that the one you had at the restaurant??
Rodolphe Le Meunier here! I haven’t seen yours locally
Wait where do you get it from, I've never seen it and I live pretty close to france
This sounds like a fun family activity! I love that people just vetoed the tea.
For anyone who's looking for more butter taste-off inspiration, I saw this on r/Portland a while back https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/1m7rzy6/ranking_all_the_salted_butter_in_portland/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
It came with a spreadsheet of results which I found fascinating https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uDF6q_1_xa1aTKsze5N7FJlbRaQdIHRZMCdhcZa592M/edit?usp=sharing
There are quite a few specialty butters that are hard to find there - not sure I could round up that many in my area.
I wish I could pin this!! I loved reading that test.
OP, your family sounds like so much fun!
I married into this family, we call it winning the family lottery. We also say that my husband lost the family lottery by marrying me haaaa
French butter is life changing on fresh baguette. You should totally redo the contest with only French butter next time!
French butter on a good baguette is something I dream of taking a bite of in the middle of night.
Have you done the baguette, French butter, with thinly sliced radishes yet? Revelatory.
No but I will this week. I love a Radish.
Let me know what you think!
I can't wait.
If you can find them French breakfast radishes are the way to go. They're small, only vaguely spicy, with a great crisp and a mild flavor. They pair with butter so well. Because sometimes I say "fuck my health" I have eaten them dipped in whipped butter drizzled with hot sauce and finished with fleur de sel and it's fucking divine.
One of the best bites, assuming it’s been hit with a sprinkle of flakey salt
This has never really clicked for me for some reason.
Entirely fair :)
An old memory. Me, age 14, living with a French family in Bordeaux for a month. I’m home alone and the doorbell rings. A bakery delivery of fresh baguettes, one of which had broken open, steaming. Slathered in butter, it was delicious!
Dang that is a great memory.
I’m totally in but finding a variety of imported French butter is the challenge.
Same take as others, as soon as I saw the French butter in the list I knew the outcome. Whole Foods sells an excellent French tasting butter for $6.99, Isigny Beurre de Baratte.
The winner was Insigny, I forgot to add that part to the name! I’ve been paying $9.99 at a specialty store. I feel robbed haha
Trader Joe's has a French cultured salted butter
I wanted to include that but couldn’t make it to a Trader Joe’s in time!
Président slightly salted is what I use all the time for everything.
President is OK for everyday use but you should try Isigny butter
I have but I actually still prefer President
God, I wish we could get an assortment of butters like this in Canada.
I would feel sad if I couldn’t get them… but I would also have more money and weigh less haha. I eat a lot of calories of baguette and butter during this fixation.
I brought that butter back from France as gifts (to myself and my fam lol). My bag got lost for 5 days, but thank god it was winter, it was worth the drama lol.
"One family member chose to eat butter alone, without bread or shame." 😂 I love your description and I think I love your family.
Great experiment! I may give this a try lol
Do it! It was fun to plan, it was fun to recruit participants, it was fun to hunt the butters, and it was fun to eat. Highly recommend.
Wait, I thought Pepe Saya was Australian? Just looked it up and yep, they produce it out of an Amish farm in the us
I wish I could tell if the American and Aussie versions are the same.
Ohhh interesting
Why wasn't Plugra included in your test?
Couldn’t find it. I really want to try it though.
If you’re based in the Midwest (which is strongly suggested by the beer chaser and inclusion of Weyauwega butter), Woodmans carries Plugra, both the blocks and spreadable tubs.
You may find Unsalted Plugra beats all others mentioned handily
lol tbh feeling pretty chuffed that I called the results in the original post
There's 0 way it's actually equivalent to margarine.
Did I say it was the same as margarine? I just said they scored the same, which is true
Yes you are the reason I did only salted butters!! I couldn’t live up to your advice about making this truly scientific (mom of two littles with no free time at Christmas) but I think you helped us skew toward accuracy!! And I couldn’t find Bordier. A lot of people recommended it here but it wasn’t in the stores I stopped at, which clearly had a variety of imported butters. Is it hard to find?
Yeah, Bordier is definitely a speciality butter. I wouldn’t expect to find it in any supermarket.
Do you know the salt content of each butter? I’d be super interested how well the saltiness predicts the rankings
How would you measure salt content? The sodium?
Yeah
"supremely mediocre (at best) butter that is just wildly overrated."
You spitteth the truth. I can't stand that stuff.
And I am that girl who sprinkles Maldon on even Presidents salted.
I gave up on Kerry gold after getting moldy butter 2x. Never had butter be moldy til this.
I recently had Kate's butter for the first time and quickly became my favorite.
I don't like plugra at all.
I wonder what others think of kates
Oh I haven’t seen Kates before.
You could try making your own cultured butter.
Either a pint or quart of heavy whipping cream, preferably low heat pasteurized. Slowly heat to 145f (to pasturize again), covered. Let cool to 100f. Add a tablespoon of good yogurt. Let sit 4-8 hours. Taste to check on how the cultured flavor is developing. Beat to whipped cream with the method of your choice and just keep going. It will eventually separate into butter and whey. Lot of directions online. Add salt after separating out the butter.
There is lot of fuss in online direction about kneading and washing. These are all great steps but don't fret them too much.
You can dial in just how much culture and salt is perfect for your palate.
Thank you! I would like to do my own butter next time. I wanted to this time but couldn’t pull it together. Have you made your own? How do you think it compares to every day butter or higher quality butters? Worth it?
I have.
It is better than store bought butter for sure.
I think it is worth it. Part of that is just that I like to cook and make things. I think with a little extra effort, taking some notes, you could dial in a flavor profile that you like. I let the culture develop moderately far, so there is noticeable bit of tanginess.
From an economic "worth it" a $14 quart of heavy cream makes about a pound of butter.
If you ever get out to New England I highly recommend trying Arethusa's butter.
Thank you!
Pepe Saya is Amish?? I don’t think so!
This led me down a rabbit hole - I guess it's an Australian company, but they're partnering with an Amish farm to produce butter for the US market. Apparently they're in Whole Foods, will have to try it sometime!
Looks like they partnered with an Amish company to get into the USA. It's nice butter but it's not the best butter we have in Australia.
Their caramels are pretty amazing though, and they do sell proper buttermilk over here in Aus that makes for awesome scones.
Parkay?
Margarine
yes. thats not "butter" tho.
did you use that as a spoiler?
Just to see how it scored. For a bit of fun really. We are mid west Americans, it could have gone either way haha
What kind of butter taste test occurs without Bordier?
You are part of a growing consensus. I need to find it!!
When I can't steal Bordier from work, Les Prés Salés is my second favourite. That shit and a baguette from my basement dwelling bread troll wizard aka the pastry chef with what appears to be a rather large meth problem, and I'm in heaven.
I feel so validated. I have always thought Kerrygold was underwhelming and wondered why this sub goes crazy for it. There are certain brands like Penzey’s which are featured on here so often that they feel a bit like organic advertising.
It's vastly better than most grocery store butters in the US, but also I don't think Kerrygold sells the same thing as they did several years back. It has considerably less flavor than it used to, dunno why.
This contest reminds me of many summers spent in France....
A freshly baked baguette from the local bakery who's not very happy with the way I wished her good day, some butter wrapped in a wax paper, a random block of cheese from the cheese shop with name that I cannot pronounce and maybe a random sausage with parts of the pig/cow that I don't want to know. Hike along a random river or lake and sit down under a tall tree.
If we are lucky, we might have a cheeky bottle of red wine or a local beer to wash it down.
I also have fond memories of a few months in France in a work exchange / host family and we ate a lot of baguette and butter at lunch with soup of whatever vegetables were seasonal. I also gained a lot of weight that trip but worth it.
French butter supremacy. The only time I’ve had better butter was a local butter I bought while in Ireland (not kerrygold). Sounds like a fun time!!
What was your testing methodology? Did people know what they were trying each time? Was there any triple blind testing?
Did the person not using bread have a different opinion than the majority?
Why was beer used as a palate cleanser?
This was half social for a family Christmas get together, half experiment - hence the beer. I’d love to do this again with more thought behind it - different categories to judge (common/low cost versus speciality/high cost or salted versus unsalted) measuring salt content, etc. How would I do a triple blind for a butter tasting? Very interested in that idea.
And no the person without bread was aligned with the majority. No one knew which butter was which, although I’m sure some guessed.
Sounds like a bit of fun and something different for a Christmas activity. I’d easily do this over charades any day…
A triple blind taste test might make things a bit funnier, although it will definitely make it take longer! It’s a classic way to test differences in food that eliminates a good amount of bias.
You’d give 3 pieces of bread, 2 with the same butter, and the third with another. Participant is blind folded.
Results are interesting because sometimes people will say that two separate products are equal, and second of the doubler is worse. If they guess both correctly as being inferior/superior, it can be taken as an accurate result. This method even lets you do a league system and the winning butter gets crowned champion.
In theory I love it.. but after we each ate 11 slices of baguette + butter (and maybe more if you needed to taste one twice) we were over it. I couldn’t imagine adding more for the sake of science haha. I handed out Tums as a parting gift.
Can’t get most of these, unfortunately. Wa surprised to see margarine in this contest! Would like to try Plugra as Martha Stewart likes it but can’t get that either. 🤷🏻♀️
Where did you get all of these? I feel like I've never even seen half of them, but admittedly haven't been looking for them either
I'm UK and I've never heard of Quickies. Anchor is the mainstream brand here, probably equivalent to Kerrygold in that it's a good every day butter but nothing bougis when compared to some of the other butters featured here.
Here is quickies: https://www.quickes.co.uk/collections/butter?srsltid=AfmBOoo87tqbl4LMeuk4bNWXHPKGsGEQdN0fVVwv2tqz1a7_oVHU4wMc
It was actually my number 1 pick. It tasted strong, I thought a little bit like cheese.
Two different local grocery stores in an affluent neighborhood. They aren’t large chains. They have higher price points and stock a lot of local foods + thoughtful imports. Not helpful to you but maybe it helps you find something similiar in your area?
Yea we likely don't have anything equivalent here but thanks anyways!
Choosing the one tasted raw is going to result in the saltiest one being the best.
This methodology is flawed.
The only thing you’re testing for is which one has the most salt.
They’re booing but in large part you’re right.
Salt content isn’t the only thing they’re testing for (i.e. I think we’d agree that the margarine wouldn’t have won even if they added a lot of salt) but it’s definitely a factor.
Even without knowing the actual salt contents, we can pretty reliably assume that the ones that advertise big salt crystals have the biggest expression of salt and those came in at the top.
The one that might not have even been salted were at or near the bottom.
There’s certainly correlation between saltiness and ranking. Other factors of course come into play too, but it’s definitely a huge confounding factor
It’s obvious.
I’ll challenge OP. Take the cheapest grocery store unsalted butter and add it to the test. Then add a nice pinch of kosher salt on top.
It would win. I would almost guarantee it.
Noted for next time!!
I would love to have made this more scientific, another person in the original post gave great advice on how to do that. But I’m a mom of two littles at Christmas who wanted to try something fun and this is the best I could do — maybe in a few years I can do a more rigorous one!
Nope. But you do you.
Out of genuine curiosity, why did you use AI to write this instead of just writing it yourself? You obviously compiled and uploaded all the information
I used Reddit on desktop for the first time in my life so I could format it nicely with bullets and bolding. I’m going to accept your comment as a misguided compliment.
You should! It really looks ai generated
This is how reddit used to look all the time when everybody was on old reddit or primarily used it on desktops. Since it's become much more popular, many people use it primarily on mobile or apps. There's nothing wrong with either way but my brain did not even flirt with flagging this as AI, just someone that put forth the effort to use the (minimal) formatting tools reddit has.