Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 81% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment, and used as a fat in baking, sauce-making, pan frying, and other cooking procedures.
Most frequently made from cow's milk, butter can also be manufactured from the milk of other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, and yaks. It is made by churning milk or cream to separate the fat globules from the buttermilk. Salt has been added to butter since antiquity to help preserve it, particularly when being transported; salt may still play a preservation role but is less important today as the entire supply chain is usually refrigerated. In modern times, salt may be added for taste and food coloring for color. Rendering butter, removing the water and milk solids, produces clarified butter (including ghee), which is almost entirely butterfat.
Butter is a gel.At room temperature, for example 20°C, butter is composed of a liquid fat phase dispersed in a solid fat phase, and water is present within the structure. Butter remains a firm solid when refrigerated but softens to a spreadable consistency at room temperature and melts to a thin liquid consistency at . The density of butter is . It generally has a pale yellow color but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. Its natural, unmodified color is dependent on the source animal's feed and genetics, but the commercial manufacturing process sometimes alters this with food colorings like annatto or carotene.
In 2023, world production of butter made from cow milk was six million tonnes, led by the United States, with 16% of the total.
Etymology
The word butter derives (via Germanic languages) from the Latin butyrum,butyrum , Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, on Perseus which is the latinisation of the Greek βούτυρον (bouturon)βούτυρον , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseusbutter , Oxford Dictionaries and βούτυρος.A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), Butyrum This may be a compound of βοῦς (bous), "ox, cow"βοῦς , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus + τυρός (turos), "cheese", that is "cow-cheese".τυρός , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on PerseusBeekes, Robert Stephen Paul, and Lucien Van Beek. Etymological dictionary of Greek. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2014 The word turos ("cheese") is attested in Mycenaean Greek.Palaeolexicon , Word study tool of ancient languages The Latinized form is found in the name butyric acid, a compound found in rancid butter and other dairy products.
Manufacturing and composition
Unhomogenized milk and cream contain butterfat in microscopic globules. These globules are surrounded by membranes made of phospholipids (fatty acid emulsifiers) and proteins, which prevent the fat in milk from pooling together into a single mass. Butter is produced by agitating cream, which damages these membranes and allows the milk fats to conjoin, separating from the other parts of the cream. Variations in the production method will create butters with different consistencies, mostly due to the butterfat composition in the finished product. Butter contains fat in three separate forms: free butterfat, butterfat crystals, and undamaged fat globules. In the finished product, different proportions of these forms result in different consistencies within the butter; butters with many crystals are harder than butters dominated by free fats.
Churning produces small butter grains floating in the water-based portion of the cream. This watery liquid was traditionally called buttermilk (although modern commercial buttermilk is instead directly fermented skimmed milk.) The buttermilk is drained off; sometimes more buttermilk is removed by rinsing the grains with water. Then the grains are "worked": pressed and kneaded together. When prepared manually, this is done using wooden boards called scotch hands. This consolidates the butter into a solid mass and breaks up embedded pockets of buttermilk or water into tiny droplets.
Commercial butter is about 80% butterfat and 15% water; traditionally-made butter may have as little as 65% fat and 30% water. Butterfat is a mixture of triglyceride, a triester derived from glycerol, and three of any of several fatty acid groups.Rolf Jost "Milk and Dairy Products" Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2002. Triglycerides are about 97% of the fat in milk.
Annatto is sometimes added by U.S. butter manufacturers without declaring it on the label because the U.S. allows butter to have an undisclosed flavorless and natural coloring agent (whereas all other foods in the U.S. must label coloring agents).Butter: A Rich History. Elaine Khosrova. 2016. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Pages 123–124. ISBN 978-1-61620-739-7 (PB). The preservative lactic acid is sometimes added instead of salt (and as a flavor enhancer), and sometimes additional diacetyl is added to boost the buttery flavor (in the U.S., both ingredients can be listed simply as "natural flavors").Butter: A Rich History. Elaine Khosrova. 2016. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Page 125. ISBN 978-1-61620-739-7 (PB). When used together in the NIZO manufacturing method, these two flavorings produce the flavor of cultured butter without actually fully fermenting.Butter: A Rich History. Elaine Khosrova. 2016. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Page 129–30. ISBN 978-1-61620-739-7 (PB).
Types
Before modern factory butter making, cream was usually collected from several milkings and was therefore several days old and somewhat fermented by the time it was made into butter. Butter made in this traditional way (from a fermented cream) is known as cultured butter. During fermentation, the cream naturally sours as bacteria convert milk sugars into lactic acid. The fermentation process produces additional aroma compounds, including diacetyl, which makes for a fuller-flavored and more "buttery" tasting product.
Butter made from fresh cream is called sweet cream butter. Production of sweet cream butter first became common in the 19th century, when the development of refrigeration and the mechanical milk separator made sweet cream butter faster and cheaper to produce at scale (sweet cream butter can be made in 6 hours, whereas cultured butter can take up to 72 hours to make).
Cultured butter is preferred throughout continental Europe, while sweet cream butter dominates in the United States and the United Kingdom. Chef Jansen Chan, the director of pastry operations at the International Culinary Center in Manhattan, says, "It's no secret that dairy in France and most of Europe is higher quality than most of the U.S." The combination of butter culturing, the 82% butterfat minimum (as opposed to the 80% minimum in the U.S.), and the fact that French butter is grass-fed, accounts for why French pastry (and French food in general) has a reputation for being richer-tasting and flakier. Cultured butter is sometimes labeled "European-style" butter in the United States, although cultured butter is made and sold by some, especially Amish, dairies.
Milk that is to be made into butter is usually pasteurized during production to kill pathogenic bacteria and other microbes. Butter made from unpasteurized raw milk is very rare and can be dangerous. Commercial raw milk products are not legal to sell through interstate commerce in the United States and are very rare in Europe. Raw cream butter is not usually available for purchase.
Clarified butter
Clarified butter has almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point and then allowing it to cool; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, whey proteins form a skin, which is removed. The resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and casein proteins that settle to the bottom.
Ghee is clarified butter that has been heated to around 120 °C (250 °F) after the water evaporated, turning the milk solids brown. This process flavors the ghee, and also produces antioxidants that help protect it from rancidity. Because of this, ghee can be kept for six to eight months under normal conditions.
Whey butter Cream may be separated (usually by a centrifuge or a sedimentation) from whey instead of milk, as a byproduct of cheese-making. Whey butter may be made from whey cream. Whey cream and butter have a lower fat content and taste more salty, tangy and "cheesy". They are also cheaper to make than "sweet" cream and butter. The fat content of whey is low, so a thousand units mass of whey will typically yield only three units of butter.Charles Thom, Walter Fisk, The Book of Cheese, 1918, reprinted in 2007 as , p. 296
Indian white butter Indian white butter (locally called Makkhan), is a cultured, fermented, unsalted butter. It is made by churning cream, and blending it with ice and cold water. This separates the solid fat (butter) from the aqueous components (buttermilk). White butter is usually made with buffalo milk or milk from grain-fed cows. This is because the β-carotene and other pigments typically present in pasture-fed cow milk will turn the butter yellow. Buffalos are very efficient at converting dietary β-carotene to vitamin A before the pigment reaches the milk, unlike most cattle species.
Protected-origin butters Several butters have protected geographical indications; these include: Beurre d'Ardenne, from Belgium Beurre d'Isigny, from France Beurre Charentes-Poitou (which also includes: Beurre des Charentes and Beurre des Deux-Sèvres under the same classification), from France Beurre Rose, from Luxembourg Mantequilla de Soria, from Spain Mantega de l'Alt Urgell i la Cerdanya, from Spain Rucava white butter (Rucavas baltais sviests), from Latvia
History
Elaine Khosrova traces the invention of butter back to the Neolithic era;. it is known to have existed in the Near East following the development of herding.6 A later Sumerian tablet, dating to approximately 2,500 B.C., describes the butter making process, from the milking of cattle, while contemporary Sumerian tablets identify butter as a ritual offering.
In the Mediterranean climate, unclarified butter spoils quickly, unlike cheese, so it is not a practical method of preserving the nutrients of milk. The ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to use the butter only as unguent and medicine and considered it as a food of the barbarians. A play by the Greek comic poet Anaxandrides refers to Thracians as boutyrophagoi, "butter-eaters".Dalby p. 65. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder calls butter "the most delicate of food among barbarous nations" and goes on to describe its medicinal properties.Bostock and Riley translation. Book 28, chapter 35 . Later, the physician Galen also described butter as a medicinal agent only.Galen. de aliment. facult.
Middle Ages
In the cooler climates of northern Europe, butter could be stored longer before it spoiled. Scandinavia has the oldest tradition in Europe of butter export, dating at least to the 12th century.Web Exhibits: Butter. Ancient Firkins . After the fall of Rome and through much of the Middle Ages, butter was a common food across most of Europe, but had a low reputation, and so was consumed principally by peasants. Butter slowly became more accepted by the upper class, notably when the Roman Catholic Church allowed its consumption during Lent from the early 16th century. Bread and butter became common fare among the middle class and the English, in particular, gained a reputation for their liberal use of melted butter as a sauce with meat and vegetables.