Today, for the first time, I checked the ingredients in butter.

[No Elephants]

Previously, I {foolishly} assumed that unsalted butter is nothing but cream.

To my surprise, I got the following info on Land O Lakes unsalted butter:

"cream, natural flavors"


Okay, but which natural flavors are typically added to butter these days? Anyone know?

[Contrary1]

1. Most likely a "Starter Distillate" explained in the linked article.

Nothing is better than real butter. We buy it from a local meat market. Comes from an Amish community somewhere in southern Indiana. Best I've ever tasted. And now I want some. :)


"The natural flavoring that is used as an ingredient in butter, is a natural milk derivative starter distillate (distilled flavors from fermented, cultured milk) that is added to the cream prior to churning. It produces flavor compounds that give unsalted butter a distinctive, pleasing taste. It is similar to those used in the production of sour cream and buttermilk. It is an all natural ingredient that is approved by the USDA and the FDA..."

Read more: http://www.comfytummy.com/2010/02/02/natural-flavorings-in-butter/#ixzz1tJ56AB00

[No Elephants]

8. Thank you. I hope it's that innocuous.

Usually when all ingredients are that innocuous, the label is more specific, so I am a bit suspicious.

(Please see Reply 5.)

I don't usually use cream or half and half anyway, but I was going to bake scones; and my market does not carry organic cream. It does, however, carry organic half and half.

I think I will substitute that, even though the scones+ may turn out less tender.

[DainBramaged]

2. Cowshit

:evilgrin:

[No Elephants]

5. Like fish oil, which Garelick Farms put into milk for some reason, cow pies ARE natural.

So the fact that the label is not more specific is concerning.

After all, "all beef" includes things like nostrils.

[DainBramaged]

14. Chicken lips

can't make a chciken pucker without chicken lips.







:hide:

[KoKo]

3. I try to buy the Organic...when I can find it. Without the additives...but, frankly

getting Butter and other things without "Natural Flavors" is getting harder and harder.

We had a cow growing up...(My Dad fancied himself as a Farmer after getting his Engineering Degree and working for Govt. after WWII) and he moved us out into a Rural Area and started to buy Cow, Horse, Goat, Chickens and to cultivate his acreage with the help of a farmer "down the road."

Making a long story short about my childhood...we milked our cow and my Mom (a City Girl) was in charge of the Pasteurizing and making from the milk...butter after the cream was skimmed off.

It was an experiment for them and they later Divorced over the issues...but...for a time I grew up using a "Sunbeam Mixer" to turn the Cream into BUTTER.

Long story short...again...

Unless you've had BUTTER MADE FROM REAL CREAM...from a COW FED on GRASS that was UNTAINTED BY PESTICIDES...You will NEVER know what REAL BUTTER tastes like. And, for that matter, REAL CREAM ..Fresh from the Cow's Milk.

It's HEAVENLY! No one alive today except on some "out of the way place in America" knows what REAL BUTTER or CREAM taste like..becaue it just doesn't exist except in such small pockets of America that there's no broad access.

------

BUT....if you can find a REAL ORGANIC DAIRY...and get some CREAM ...bring it home...take out your MIXER and follow instructions from any internet site telling you "HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN HOMEMADE BUTTER...and then you will understand the TASTE and TEXTURE...and you will DIE IN A TRANCE and go TO HEAVEN or whatever You FEEL IS YOUR PLEASURE in your Afterlife.

The taset is like nothing one can buy these days...unless you have a Farmer's Wife living nearby who can do the "old ways" and her hubby is so TOTALLY ORGANIC that they lose HALF THEIR CROP every year.

Not many of those places left here in America ...these days

[1monster]

4. It isn't that hard! Buy some heavy cream. Fill a mason jar (or a mayonaise jar,

or any other such jar with a tightly closing lid). Fill it about half full with the cream, tightly close the lid, and then shake it (and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and shake it, and so on and so forth). Sooner or later it will turn into butter. Drain off the excess milk (fondly known as butter milk even though all the butter fat is gone from it). Add salt to taste or not as you please.

You can buy neat little butter molds to put the fresh butter in if you want to. Refridgerate the butter until about twenty minutes before you want to use it.

We've done this on occasion just for fun (However, such repetitive fun a bit boring, we don't do it often.) It tastes great, even without those other "natural flavors" added.

[No Elephants]

7. Do you know if that works with ultra pasteurized heavy cream? That's all my market sells.

[lbrtbell]

9. I'd love to do that, but I can't

Physical disabilities and all. :(

For a joke, I suggested to someone that I take the jar to a paint shop, and let them use their paint mixing machine to shake it up for me, LOL.

[No Elephants]

10. Thje link Contrary 1 gave in Reply #1 says it can be done in the food processor.

Also, I've seen butter made accidentally, when someone was using an electric mixer to whip cream.

Probably, if you do a little googling, you can come up with a few methods that do not require you to shake the cream. (That sounds dirty!)

[No Elephants]

11. You could probably use an electric mixer or food processor. Maybe even a blender.

[No Elephants]

6. My supermarket carries organic milk and organic half and half, but not organic cream.

Again, I don't know if the cows are grass fed, but organic butter runs about $8 a pound and never seems to go on sale. On the other hand, Land O Lakes was on sale a few weeks ago for $2 a pound.

I bought some to freeze.

On a staple like butter, a six dollar a pound difference adds up.

The funny thing is that I wanted to make scones, which I have not baked since I started checking labels.

Although the recipe calls for cream, I bought the organic half and half and intended to mix a little butter with the organic half and half to try to make up for the missing fat content.

It was then that I decided to read the label of the butter I had in the freezer. Catch 22.

[grampadave]

12. Ingredients in butter.

I'm reasonably sure that one of the main components of butter is butt, hence its name.

[No Elephants]

13. You can't trust those names.

Neither dog nor heat is an ingredient in a hot dog, though butt probably is.