SF Chronicle provides us a Butter - Off (euro style butters) [moved from San Francisco Bay area board]

[jonnypea]

as I have often wondered myself (and unfortunately often made the decision based on whatever was available on sale) which butter is better for baking and if I've a fridge full of it, am I going to enjoy a lovely toasted onion bagel slathered with it? Nice to see
Challenge held up well in the overall scores (altho', truth be told,
I usually use just the regular ol' domestic Challenge or Land of Lakes butters for both baking & whatever...)
Chron results here: http://tinyurl.com/uv2vq
butters you have known and loved?

[christy319]

Interesting. I just made my standard Christmas cookies with Plugra, and didn't care for the results. They came out TOO buttery, almost greasy tasting.

I just bought Vermont Butter and Cheese Company butter at Whole Foods-it is excellent for regular uses (I haven't baked with it, and probably won't because it's more expensive and comes in a tube shape-not easy to measure).

[Willly]

Has anyone baked with Cabot 83%. I can get it at my local Restaurant Depot, and it's cheaper than Plugra at Trader Joe's.

[toodie jane]

can anyone tell me hwich butter came in second for baking?

why oh why didn't they list the separate scores? Anyone reading a butter taste-off review would cetainly be willing to have two kinds of butter in the fridge.

[MsMaryMc]

You really had to read the whole article carefully to find the individual category rankings, and at least one I got by process of elimination. I agree--why didn't they just list them all in a simple chart?? But here's the top five for baking, in order, as I read it:

1) Jana Valley
2) Lurpak
3) La Baratte
4) Challenge European-Style
5) Straus European-Style

[notmartha]

Interesting results... I'd tried Kerry Gold and Plugaria and wasn't impressed with either enough to try it again. Stuck with the regular TJ unsweetened for cooking/baking.

[Pei]

I like TJ's unsalted for baking too, but mostly because it's so inexpensive and seems to work pretty well.

On bread, with just a dash of salt, I like Kerigold, Jana Valley, Lurpak, and Plugra. But if given the money and the choice, I would go for Vermont Cheese Co.'s butter with sea salt already embedded in it. Yum.

[annimal]

america's test kitchen did one too. Land O'Lakes did pretty darn well, i think it was the front runner.

I however, recently got a taste of Kerrygold butter... holy &#@*#@ was it good. of course, I'm sure that the fact that i got a big pat of it helped. But oh man, it was great. Stole my heart. Too bad I can't afford to use it in baking etc. now i'm going to have to hunt down the other ones.

[Ruth Lafler]

Reading the article, I think their criteria were different than mine would be, at least for the table portion of the tasting. They seemed to give preferrence to rather bland, sweet butters.

[Robert Lauriston]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...

Does the print version have a table with the individual scores? I always find that more useful than the totals as I tend to agree with Roland Passot and Shelley Handler, and disagree with John Carroll.

[MollyGee]

nope.

[scarmoza]

Thanks for posting that! I'm going to have to try Jana Valley butter in my next batch of shortbread cookies. I was about to use Plugra.

Butter tasting sounds like fun!