In Las Vegas, we like butter

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2001 | 8:26 a.m.

Who among us does not love butter, whether in cakes, on bread, fresh vegetables or in mouth-watering auces? To be classified as butter in the United States, this wonderful substance generally made from churned sweet cream (or in rare cases, from cultured cream) must contain at least 80 percent butterfat.

The remainder is water, milk solids, salt (if it is salted butter) and a coloring agent such as annatto, to give it a deeper yellow cast.

Butter is graded by letter according to guidelines set by the USDA, and the gradations are either AA, A or B. AA is almost always used for baking because of its sweet aroma and creamy texture, and AA is the butter most often found on supermarket shelves.

Today's creameries use highly controlled production methods in which the cream is pasteurized to at least 161 degrees for at least 15 seconds, or, in the case of ultra-pasteurized, 280 degrees for no less than two seconds.

Butter contains 4 grams of fat, and 2.5 grams of saturated fat per teaspoon, and it melts at temperatures between 82 and 96 degrees. There are many different types of butter on the market: unsalted, the lightly salted butter also known as sweet cream butter, salted butter, whipped butter, and European style. The latter is the richest of all in butterfat and consequently, the lowest in water content.

Salted butter does have a longer shelf life, but it is not often used in baking.

If you do happen to use salted butter in baking, however, there is a simple rule of thumb to follow in recipes, provided by "The Joy of Baking": Omit a quarter-teaspoon of salt per every half cup of butter used. It will be almost as if you have done the recipe using unsalted butter.

Many prominent local chefs and pastry chefs use European-style butter in their recipes. Some of these butters top 90 percent butterfat, the most expensive being Echire, which Van Rex Gourmet Foods sells in 5-kilogram (11-pound) wooden tubs for a whopping $95. A less-expensive European butter would be President, the foil-wrapped butter you see in many local restaurants. It is around $5 per pound.

Over at the venerable Freed's Bakery, head baker Danny O'Brien uses unsalted butter from Anderson Dairy in his cakes and his famous butter-cream icing, which is around 80 percent butter. O'Brien has been at Freed's for 27 years, and he says that he avoids salted butters because he doesn't like a salty taste in his cakes.

O'Brien also makes rugala, the rich, Jewish-inspired cookie-size pastries, from a one-to-one-to-one butter, flour and cream cheese dough. The rugala are delicious, almost impossibly rich.

Jean-Luc Daul, pastry chef for Four Seasons, favors a butter called Plugra, a European-style butter made in America, with a butterfat content that is in the high 80s. But he misses his native butters, which he says taste better than those available in the United States.

"What gives a butter its taste is what the cows feed on," he says, "the quality of the milk used as a starting point."

Daul uses Plugra, which is very popular with restaurant professionals, exclusively in the hotel's tea pastries, cakes and scones.

"It has a lower melting point than commercial butters, and releases flavor without leaving a waxy coating on the tongue, like a less-expensive butter tends to do," he says. Chefs who do not bake like Plugra as well. Chef Carlos Guia, of Commander's Palace, likes salted butter for his table, which he uses to make a savory spread for the restaurant's signature hot baked, paper-bagged loaves, but he cooks strictly with unsalted. He makes a thick blond roux for the restaurant's famous turtle soup with unsalted butter, and also a Bechamel sauce for his vegetables.

"In New Orleans cuisine, we use a lot of butter," Guia says. "Plugra is only around $1 more than regular butter, so it is a good value."

Not all chefs prefer Plugra, however. Amy Pressman makes delicious desserts, such as lemon pannacotta and caramel box, for Market City Caffe in the Monte Carlo. "What I use at home isn't the same as what I use at work," Pressman says. "A great butter is dense, and has elasticity, which you see when you mix dough. By the way, you should never use whipped butter in baking," she says. "The volume is variable, and it is just too hard to measure."

Whipped butter is aerated to make it instantly spreadable and can include water, another reason why it should be used only as a spread.

"I use Altadena butter in 60-pound blocks for commercial baking. I find the European-style butters, especially Plugra, cloys in pie crusts and in cookies," Pressman says, adding that, for home baking, Trader Joe's is selling an Irish butter called Kerry for $2.49 a half pound.

"It's the best butter I've ever tasted, even in the cookies I make for my sons," she says.

Smith's sells its own brand of salted and unsalted butter for $2.49 per pound, Challenge Butter for $2.99 per pound, and the same price for Tillamook Butter from Oregon. The store's European-style butter, on sale, is $1.99 per half pound. Smart and Final's butters range from $2.09 per pound to $2.79 per pound.

Van Rex Gourmet Foods (the company that sells the two butters from Normandy mentioned above) does sell to the public.

The American Butter Institute recommends storing butter in the refrigerator at or below 40 degrees. It also recommends that if you buy unsalted butter, and do not intend to use it right away, to freeze it. Unsalted butter will keep anywhere from between four and six months when well-wrapped and not exposed to odors, and quite a bit longer at temperatures at around minus-10 degrees.