Information AboutButter |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT BUTTER | |
| butter | |
| greek loanwordsbutter | |
| greek loanwords | |
| dairy products | |
| spreads | |
| condiments | |
| cooking fats | |
|
Butter is a Dairy Product made by Churning fresh or Fermented Cream or Milk . In many parts of the world, butter is an everyday food. Butter is used as a Spread , as a Condiment and in Cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying. Butter consists of Butterfat surrounding minuscule droplets consisting mostly of Water and milk Protein s. The most common form of butter is made from Cows ' milk, but butter can also be made from the milk of other Mammal s, including Sheep , Goat s, Buffalo , and Yak s. Salt , Flavoring s, or Preservative s are sometimes added to butter. Rendering butter produces Clarified Butter or '' Ghee '', which is almost entirely butterfat. A firm solid when Refrigerated , butter softens to a spreadable consistency at Room Temperature and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32–35 °C (90–95 °F). The color of butter is generally a pale Yellow , but can vary from deep yellow to nearly white. The color of the butter depends on the animal's feed and is sometimes manipulated with Food Coloring s, most commonly Annatto or Carotene . The term "butter" is used in the names of products made from found in Rancid butter and other rancid dairy products. BUTTER PRODUCTION Main article: Churning (butter) , and undamaged fat globules. In finished butter, different proportions of these three forms result in different consistencies: butters with many crystals are harder than butters dominated by free fats. Almost all commercially-made butter today starts with Pasteurized cream, usually heated to a relatively high pasteurization temperature above 80 °C (180 °F). Before it is churned, the cream is cooled to about 5 °C (40 °F) and allowed to remain at that temperature for at least eight hours; under these conditions about half the butterfat in the cream crystallizes. The jagged crystals of fat inflict damage upon the fat globule membranes during churning, speeding the butter-making process. Churning produces small butter grains floating in the water-based portion of the cream. This watery liquid is . This consolidates the butter into a solid mass and breaks up embedded pockets of buttermilk or water into tiny droplets. Commercial butter is about 80% butterfat and 15% water; traditionally-made butter may have as little as 65% fat and 30% water. Butterfat consists of many moderate-sized, saturated Hydrocarbon chain fatty acids. It is a Triglyceride , an Ester derived from Glycerol and three Fatty Acid groups. Butter becomes Rancid when these chains break down into smaller components, like Butyric Acid and Diacetyl . TYPES OF BUTTER Before modern factory butter making, cream was usually collected from several milkings and was therefore several days old and somewhat fermented by the time it was made into butter. Butter made from a fermented cream is known as cultured butter. During fermentation, the cream naturally sours as Bacteria convert Milk Sugars into Lactic Acid . The fermentation produces additional aroma compounds, including Diacetyl , which makes for a fuller-flavored and more "buttery" tasting product.McGee p. 35. Today, cultured butter is usually made from pasteurized cream whose fermentation is produced by the introduction of '' Lactococcus '' and '' Leuconostoc '' bacteria. Another method for producing cultured butter, developed in the 1970s, is to produce butter from fresh cream and then incorporate bacterial cultures and lactic acid. Using this method, the cultured butter flavor grows as the butter is aged in cold storage. For manufacturers, this method is more efficient since aging the cream used to make butter takes significantly more space than simply storing the finished butter product. A similar and even more efficient method is to add lactic acid and flavor compounds directly to the fresh-cream butter; while this more efficient process simulates the taste of cultured butter, the product produced is not considered real cultured butter. Today, dairy products are often Pasteurized during production to kill Pathogen ic bacteria and other Microbe s. Butter made from pasteurized fresh cream is called sweet cream butter. Production of sweet cream butter first became common in the 19th century, with the development of Refrigeration and the mechanical cream separator.McGee p. 33. Butter made from fresh or cultured unpasteurized cream is called '''raw cream butter'''. Raw cream butter has a "cleaner" cream flavor, without the cooked-milk notes that pasteurization introduces. Cultured butter is the most common type of butter in Continental Europe , while sweet cream butter dominates in the United States and the United Kingdom . Because of this, cultured butter is sometimes labeled ''European-style butter'' in the United States. Raw cream butter is virtually unheard-of in the United States, and is rare in Europe as well.McGee p. 34. Several spreadable butters have been developed; these remain softer at colder temperatures and are therefore easier to use directly out of refrigeration. Some modify the makeup of the butter's fat through chemical manipulation of the finished product, some through manipulation of the cattle's feed, and some by incorporating Vegetable Oil s into the butter. '''Whipped butter''', another product designed to be more spreadable, is aerated via the incorporation of Nitrogen gas— normal air is not used, as doing so would encourage Oxidation and Rancidity . All categories of butter are sold in both salted and unsalted forms. Salted butters have either fine, granular Salt or a strong Brine added to them during the working. Nations that favor sweet cream butter tend to favor salted butter as well, possibly reflecting the blander taste of uncultured butter. In addition to flavoring the butter, the addition of salt also acts as a Preservative . Another important aspect of production is the amount of Butterfat in the finished product. In the United States, all products sold as "butter" must contain a minimum of 80% butterfat by weight; most American butters contain only slightly more than that, averaging around 81%. European-style butters generally have a higher ratio of up to 85% butterfat. Clarified Butter is butter with almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point and then allowing it to cool off; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, Whey proteins form a skin which is removed, and the resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and Casein proteins that settle to the bottom. ''' Ghee ''' is clarified butter which is brought to higher temperatures (120 °C/250 °F) once the water has cooked off, allowing the milk solids to brown. This process flavors the ghee, and also produces Antioxidant s which help protect it longer from rancidity. Because of this, ghee can keep for six to eight months under normal conditions.McGee p. 37. HISTORY ''.]] Since even accidental agitation can turn cream into butter, it is likely that the invention of butter goes back to the earliest days of Dairying , perhaps in the Mesopotamia n area between 9000 and 8000 BCE . The earliest butter would have been from Sheep or Goat 's milk; Cattle are not thought to have been Domesticated for another thousand years or so.Dates from McGee p. 10. An ancient method of butter making, still used today in some parts of Africa and the Near East , is shown in the photo at right, taken in Palestine . A goat skin is half filled with milk, then inflated with air and sealed. It is then hung with ropes on a tripod of sticks and rocked to and fro until the butter is formed. |
|
|