Bring your butter beyond basic by adding a few simple ingredients. You can whip it up in no time!
3 steps to Compound Butter
(Or two if you skip the fancy roll at the end!)
1. Start with 2 sticks (or 1 cup) unsalted butter or margarine, softened to room temperature.
2. Combine butter and flavorings, mixing well.
3. You can either store your butter in a small dish (as I usually do) or you can go fancy and roll it in a sheet of parchment paper and and form a log. From that you can slice off nice circles as you need them.
Flavor Variations
The sky's the limit on this one! Try some of the ideas below, or experiment with your own favorite flavors:
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| One of our herb combos gives you three herbs to choose from! |
• Chili Lime Butter: 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, 1-2 teaspoons fresh lime zest and 2 teaspoons red chili flakes.
• Blue Cheese Butter: 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese and 2 tablespoons finely chopped chives (optional).
• Cinnamon Butter: 1 tablespoon cinnamon and honey (or superfine sugar) to taste.
• Fig Butter: 1 jar fig preserves—chop up any large bits of fig—1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg.
• Honey butter: mix in honey to taste. I don't have an amount for this one. :-)
Cooking with Compound Butters
Pair your gourmet butters with fresh-baked bread, or get creative with them:
• Toss pasta with lemon herb or blue cheese butter—or a little bit of both!
• Sauté cod filets in herb, chili lime or fig butter.
• Whip mashed potatoes with savory butters, or let slices melt atop baked potatoes.
• Melt chili lime butter, then drizzle over corn on the cob.
• Spread waffles, pancakes and scones with cinnamon, fig or butterscotch butter.
• Finish steaks with slices of herb or blue cheese butter.
• Add sweet butters—fig, cinnamon and beyond—to oatmeal, rice pudding and other porridges.
