Butter

My love affair with butter began at an early age, but then the artificially flavored butter-like food products quickly became the norm. I’m bringing butter back.

Okay, so maybe if I was Justin Timberlake, I could make that sound cool, but I’m not and won’t even try to convince any of you who may have an aversion to the deliciousness that is butter. While my preference for cooking and baking is unsalted, my partner’s mother prefers the salted kind and has always got some in a butter dish next to the stove. But then again, she uses it for everything from toast to cookies and does not even have any type of margarine in the house. I haven’t gone that far, but mostly because I’ve found a substitute for margarine that actually tastes good, Bummel & Brown Made With Natural Yogurt. I’d never use it for baking, but for buttering toast and a nice whole wheat English muffin, it’s delicious. However, I sometimes wonder if my partner’s mother is on to something. After all, she is a nurse, and an RN at that, so she probably knows a thing or two about healthy eating.

For cooking and baking, I mostly have three fats I use; canola oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter. Shortenings have their place in the kitchen, but are rarely used in mine unless either requested for a cake order for dietary reasons or trial and error has informed me that shortening works better for that particular recipe (“Curse you, Gingersnap!”) But my preferred fat for baking and desserts in general is butter. Canola is great when you need the fat, but don’t want it to impart any flavor to the party. Extra Virgin olive oil is perfect for adding a fruitiness and light flavor background to just about everything it goes into, whether it be a quick stir fry or cakes and cookies, and is the most used oil in our household by far. But butter is used for the gentle flavor it conveys, which enhances both the savory and the sweet. You’ll notice my three fat choices each are single ingredient options; canola oil is made from rapeseed, olive oil from olives, and butter from cream. Go read the ingredients on your margarine and shortening and tell me if you even know what half of the ingredients are.

I use butter a lot for baking, as adding dairy for all the fat and liquid to a cake will yield a homemade taste even from a box mix, although completely from scratch will eliminate ingredients that require a Doctorate in Biochemistry to decipher. I couldn’t imagine trying to use margarine to make my chocolate chip cookies, but I’m sure it would knock a day or two off the time it takes to create them. And yes, my chocolate chip cookie recipe requires three days, but they are delicious and well worth the wait. And no, you will never, ever have it as I plan on taking it to the grave with me… or bequeathing it to my godson Elijah.

Butter is also able to be enjoyed by lactose intolerant people because it has such an extremely low amount of lactose in it, but those with milk allergies should avoid it, as it is made from milk and contains enough proteins that cause those allergies to flare up. And recent research has led some nutritionists to reevaluate the stigma attached to butter because of the saturated fat content it has, especially in this age of trans-fat awareness, of which butter contains none. Those trans-fats, found mostly in margarines and shortenings, long used as butter substitutes, are responsible for a lot of the heart disease we see today, whereas the fatty acids present in butter actually can prevent disease in the first place. I’m not telling you to go out and devour entire sticks of butter as part of your daily health regimen, but to consider that it is a better alternative to artificially flavored butter-like food products… unless, of course, you have an allergic reaction to milk.