European Butter
The bakers you see on The Great British Baking Show ™ are typically using European butter and there's good reason why, when recreating their bakes, you would want to use it too.
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European butter contains more butterfat than the on-the-shelf American butters, and the extra fat makes a real difference when baking. Additionally, the traditional production methods maintain the very best taste.
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Kerrygold Irish butter (available salted and unsalted) is rich and creamy and is, in my kitchen, the only butter to use in baking. The richness of the butter is derived from the fact that the Kerrygold cows are fed on the very special Irish grass that thrives in the wet Irish climate. The lovely grass makes for spectacular milk, which then creates the most beautiful of butters.
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The Great British Baking Show ™ is really careful not to show preference for any brands, and I respect them for that. Our test kitchen, however, experiments with alternative butters and we find that this is a perfect solution.
Best European-Style Butter: Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter
Shilpa Uskokovic, writing for Bon Appetit ™, said "It’s rare that my fridge is without at least one shiny, silver-wrapped bar of Kerrygold, with its distinct, sunny yellow color. With 82% butterfat, the difference from American butters is immediately obvious. It’s pliable even straight out of the fridge (a property of fats and oils called plasticity) and it softens and becomes spreadable quickly at room temperature because there’s less water, which takes longer to warm up than fat."
She goes on to say "A buttercream made with Kerrygold is thick and noticeably creamier than one made with American-style butter."
Where to find European butter
Every decent-sized grocery store is likely to have Kerrygold on the shelves. Alternatively, you can place a recurring order with Amazon for this lovely butter.
Salted v unsalted
Salted butter contains, typically, 1-2% salt. This site (relaxedrecipes.com) exists to bring you a world of information about food and flavors, but not to stress you out. If you like salt and feel like you're in control of your cooking, then it's really simple - if you use salted butter then you probably won't add any additional salt to your baking. If you use unsalted butter and you're cooking something that will taste better with a hint of salt in the background notes, then throw a little salt in! Kerrygold butter is delicious in both salted and unsalted forms.
Recipes
For these recipes, European butter is better!
