Storing butter at room temperature

Mr_Proctalgia

I find that even HM Butter keeps for a week to 10 days or so outside the fridge in a glass butter dish - Not had any go off on me yet.

HTH

wolvesinwales

Just noticed that the best before date on my butter sachets is 28/02/07, still seems fine to me.

kippers

I bought a butter dish after searching everywhere for one. It cost me over £12 (before i had my lightbulb moment). I do now see them in charity shops and i could kick myself for wasting the money.

ktpie

I was just wondering if we were the only people in the world who kept our butter in a regular cupboard (not the cold white one!) when I found this thread. We too haven't died yet despite my mothers concerns about rancid butter. Ours is just in an airtight container as well, not even a butter dish! We do eat a fair amount of butter so it's probably not about for long.

buxtonrabbitgreen

A butter dish is the way to go. The thicker the better. I got mine from a charity shop after sadly dropping the lid off the one I had free with Lurpack butter. Even more sad about it when I found out that they are now a collectors item. you know the one with the little Lurpack man on the top.

I just had a quick look on Ebay and the Lurpack man one is going for £2.50 so not as valuable as I thought. So I don't feel so bad now. There was a lot of ceramic butter dishes including one at 99p in anyone is interested.

Botany

Reading this thread reminded me that i need to go and check the state of decomposition my block of butter is at.... I bought it sometimes in January or prolly around Christmas to bake something, put it in the fridge (only because we hardly use it) and promptly forgot about it until I read this...

...as you can gather, we are definitely not butter-eaters in this house...

This said, I do like butter very much (I have tried marg and cannot understand why people would choose it over good old butter). Butter is lovely, and when I did eat it I had absolutely no problem leaving it out of the fridge. It's perfectly fine, it keeps for days and days and it tastes better than 'cold' butter.

How many of our grand-parents didn't have fridges? Yet they survived and most of them thrived. In fact, sometimes I think they are (allowing for age) much healthier than the newer generations who have bee raised in sterilised environments, and fed streilised food food of preservatives.

However, should one really find the idea of butter kept outside of the fridge 'upsetting', may I suggest they simply take a bit out when they need it and put it in a dish in the microwave for a fraction of a second (not for longer :rolleyes:) before using it? the trick is really to keep it there for as short a time as possible (I'm talking don't even count to three... count to 1 and 1/2....). If you time it right, it will come out soft yet not melted.

tandraig

i never microwave butter - cos i dont time it right ! the way to make butter out of fridge spreadable is to put some on a plate then mash with fork! when i was a kid we didnt have a fridge but we did have a pantry (unheated little room) in the winter things would actually freeze in there! so we kept milk in a pan of cold water with wet muslin cloth over, butter, and other items you would keep in fridge. not eggs - they are best kept at room temperature.

tandraig

oh sorry meant to say - the butter only went in pantry if it was hot outside! then my mum would get annoyed -lol as mashing the butter meant more wasted! it was kept in ceramic butter dish.

babyshoes

We don't have a butter dish at all, just a little plastic tub with a lid and it works fine. We put half a block of butter in it at a time, the rest is in the fridge. When the second half goes into the tub another block comes out of the freezer and goes in the fridge.

We leave it out pretty much all the time, including in summer unless it is actually melting, and we have never had it go rancid. I would say that it sometimes stays out for around 10 days and it is fine.

ClutterNutter_2

I always thought butter could be left at room temperature, but I got some sainsbury's basics butter recently and that says to keep it in the fridge! I ignored it though and still kept it out of the fridge, because it was impossible to use otherwise!