Good butter for baking?

valk_scot

Spreadable butter is a mix of butter and oil so really, it's not as good for baking as block butter. Even if you just switched to block Lurpack it would be cheaper. After that the taste of butter is pretty similar whether it's branded or supermarket own brand, with the exception of luxury butters made from jersey milk etc. The main difference is between unsalted and salted. Unsalted tends to be more expensive just because of economy of scale.

I'd just go for the supermarket basic brand butter if you want to use only butter, or experiment with some of the better quality margerines. I use Stork...soft for cakes, block for everything else...because stork has a quite distinctive taste which I like, mostly because my mum used it in baking too. Don't use "spreads" like half fat flora, stick to either butter or marg.

angeltreats

I have to admit I always fork out for a good branded butter. I really do think it gives better results. I use Lurpak or Country Life, and I prefer salted to unsalted. I stock up when it's on offer and it doesn't work out much more expensive than a supermarket value butter.

There are some things I prefer margarine for though. Like one of DH's mum's biscuit recipes, similar to Twink's hobnobs, works much better with margarine, and Stork is great for pastry.

meritaten

I use block butter for baking and cooking - but the cheaper brands! I also dont care if its salted or unsalted! sorry, but I can tell if margerine has been used instead of butter! also if pastry has been made from Trex - I hate the taste of it! there is no substitute for real butter and even if a recipe uses margerine, after trying it I usually decide i prefer to use real butter!

angeltreats

At college when we were making croissants, we were shown some white baker's fat and told that this is what most of the croissants, puff pastry, danish etc you buy in the shops is made of. Basically anything that's made in a similar way to puff as it's easier to work with because it doesn't melt the way butter does when you're constantly rolling and folding the dough. We had to have a go with it to see how different it is from butter to work with, and the difference in taste etc.

Well, I'm not squeamish at all, I happily gut fish and eat my steaks while they're still mooing, but this baker's fat absolutely turned my stomach. It's different to the white fats you buy in the shops like Trex etc, it looks like a really hard block of soap and tastes absolutely horrible. Thankfully you don't find this stuff on sale in the supermarkets, you have to buy it in huge bulk from trade suppliers, but it really has put me off buying croissants from Tesco etc which can only be a good thing

Penelope_Penguin

I use Tesco value butter in baking - the unsalted is good, but doesn;t keep fresh as well as the salted

There are more opinions in this thread; I'll merge this later

valk_scot

For pastry 50% butter (for flavour) and 50% Cookeen or Trex (for shortness) is the best combination.

ginvzt

I am guilty of using the good butter for baking... President is my favourite one. But just this week I bought some Sainsbury's basic one, I guess the result will be the same.

rachbc

I use value butter for baking but have recently discover aldi continetal butter which is almost as cheap and lovely (and unsalted too - not all value brands are available unsalted)

uropachild

Thank you all very much! I think at the very least i will buy some block butter for baking with and i will definitely try the value brands to see what the difference is, if any.

ginvzt

Oh yes - I only buy unsalted butter. If I want to add salt, I can do it myself. But usually - I don't want it! I think I will have to pay a visit to Aldi and Lidl to check out what they have.