The No. 1 Butter for Baking, In line with Jacques Pépin

When Jacques Pépin recommends a model of butter, we hear. As one of many world’s most acclaimed cooks (and a Frenchman) who has flambéed crêpes suzette and baked tarte tatin alongside Julia Little one, he is aware of which butter is as much as the duty for all of your baking wants. 

Earlier than you begin baking with butter, Pépin says step one is to style it. A well-made butter ought to have a dairy-rich, candy cream taste. That’s what offers every part from an all-butter pie dough to a brown-butter chocolate chip cookie that satisfying, “I can’t cease consuming this” feeling. 

The simplest option to style butter is to unfold it over a bit of bread, Pépin notes. However to find out high quality for baking, he doesn’t solely assess the flavour. “I may see the best way it spreads or breaks,” says Pépin. A softer butter will probably be simpler to work with when making laminated pastries like croissants.

It would shock you to study that Pépin doesn’t routinely attain for uncommon or premium-priced butters. His go-to butter for baking is a staple from early in his cooking profession: Land O’Lakes.

“Years in the past, I began utilizing Land O’Lakes as a result of it was one of many solely butters I may discover. It’s nonetheless a favourite of mine,” he says. Pépin depends on it for laminated doughs like puff pastry, the place butter is important for each taste and performance. Because the water within the butter evaporates throughout baking, it creates steam that offers the pastry its signature puff. He additionally makes use of it for less complicated doughs, like within the piecrust for his rustic apple tart. 

Fortunately for residence bakers, Land O’Lakes is broadly stocked in shops that vary from Greenback Basic to Erewhon. We’ve but to see a grocery retailer that doesn’t carry it.

On the subject of European-style butter, Pépin recommends Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. European-style butter has a better butterfat content material than its American counterpart, and is commonly cultured, which provides it a tangy taste. With its 82% butterfat content material and opulent, creamy taste, Kerrygold is certainly a superb alternative — it gained our “Finest General” class in a staff-led butter style check. 

We admire you, Jacques, for spreading the phrase and making us, umm, butter bakers.