Cultured butter is made with fresh, pasteurized cream just like regular sweet cream butter but with one additional, very important step.
Fresh Vermont cows’ cream from the St. Albans Coop is received at the Creamery and pasteurized.
After pasteurization, our expert butter makers carefully add live bacterial cultures to our fresh Vermont cream.
The cream rests in a vat, where it thickens and develops wonderfully tangy flavor notes of buttermilk and hazelnuts.This is the source of the flavor difference between cultured butter and sweet cream, or American-style butter.
After the fermentation, the cream is churned into butter. Making cultured butter is much like making wine, you want to ferment your cream like grapes, slowly, to produce the best aromas. The longer you culture – the better.
At Vermont Creamery we craft two formats of cultured butter: 82% sticks and 86% rolls and baskets.
Our new sea salt and unsalted cultured butter are available in stick form, so they are even easier to use for cooking and baking. This butter has been churned to achieve 82 percent butterfat, the standard for European-style butters, making it the perfect butter for baking.
Our cultured butter also comes in the rolls and baskets and are deliciously cultured and churned in small batches to 86% butterfat for an even richer butter taste.
Cultured butter is made in the European-style with pasteurized cream in a churn just like regular butter, but with one added step. After pasteurization, the cream is fermented by adding a carefully selected bacterial culture. The cream rests for one day in a vat to allow the culture to produce a complex blend of flavor compounds. This is the source of the flavor difference between cultured butter and sweet cream, or American-style butter. After the fermentation, the cream is churned into butter.
We purchase our cows' milk and cream from the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery. Our fresh goats' milk comes from a network of farms in Vermont and Canada. For our fresh goat cheese logs, we supplement our North American supply of goats' milk with imported curd. In this way, we can meet our customers demand for our high-quality goat cheese.
Yes. We recommend butter can be frozen in the original packaging for up to four months. To help the butter maintain its fresh delicate flavor, we suggest wrapping the carton in aluminum foil or in an airtight re-sealable plastic bag before freezing. Once the butter has been thawed, it should be used within 30 days.
It's best to soften butter at room temperature for 30 minutes; also, cutting butter into smaller pieces will speed up the softening. We don't recommend softening butter before using it for baking (it often gets too soft and affect the recipe's success) if you do choose to use the microwave, use the defrost setting (30% power). Check butter every 5 seconds so that it does not over-soften or melt.
We recommend following the "Keep Refrigerated" directions printed on the labels of Vermont Creamery Butter and using by the date stamped on the package. Once opened, store butter in the refrigerator, wrapped or in a covered butter dish. Butter, once exposed to air, may become darker in color and have the flavor affected. For longer storage, Vermont Creamery Butter can be frozen in the original packaging for up to four months. To help the butter maintain its fresh delicate flavor, we suggest wrapping the carton in aluminum foil or in an airtight re-sealable plastic bag before freezing. Once the butter has been thawed, it should be used within 30 days.
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