I took butter to another level for this post (10 years ago!), with recipes of flavors and techniques that I’m sharing here, complete with options to make vegan butter, beautiful too!
I really enjoy the work to make every detail as beautiful as the love put into a holiday meal or a special celebration.
I’ve been day-dreaming about butter and wanted to share a few of my ideas to add variety and flavor to ordinary, salted butter, and to vegan butter. I’ll also show you how to display your servings in beautiful and unexpected ways.
Placing regular or naturally flavored butter into ramekins to pass around family-style is a favorite.
For placing a serving of butter at each place setting, I recommend using cordial stemware. These pieces are perfectly petite for the job and are so pretty to look at.
You can link to my Trinity Rolls recipe (shown below) to pair with this recipe.
I’m going to share three different butter flavoring recipes. Even if you select only one special butter to prepare, your guests will be thrilled! First up is my favorite.
Mili’s Sweets Orange Butter Recipe – vegan option included
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, salted (or try vegan butter. My favorite alternative butter for vegan recipes is original, organic, or soy-free Earth Balance butter.)
zest of one large navel orange
one tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
Here’s what you’ll do:
Soften the stick of butter by warming it in the microwave for 8-10 seconds.
Use the scraping, paddle attachment for your standing mixer. Add the butter and zest. Mix at medium-low speed. Add the juice and mix for an additional minute, or until the bottom of your bowl is evenly covered in butter.
Place in ramekin and refrigerate.
(THAT’S IT!) So easy. So beautiful.
Then there are butter buttons. I’m a crazy person and that’s ok. I love with the idea of lovely little pats of butter, set for guests on their bread plates. Below I show what I used to make these happen.
For the buttons, I used Sugar & Spice Butter. This is a wonderful recipe for guests who have a sweet tooth, but I really made it as a perfect way to enjoy baked yams and sweet potatoes.
Mili’s Sweets Sugar & Spice Butter Recipe
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, salted (or substitute for vegan butter)
1 tablespoon of honey
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
¼ teaspoon of cinnamon
Here’s what you’ll do:
Soften the stick of butter by warming it in the microwave for 8-10 seconds.
Use the scraping, paddle attachment of your standing mixer. Add all ingredients to your bowl and mix at medium-low speed.
Place in ramekin and refrigerate.
*HERE’S A TIP* When mixing butter with a standing mixer, you should be done mixing when the butter has completely and evenly covered the bottom of the bowl.
Below are notes and ideas for presenting and serving your beautiful butter:
Wood Design: Place the prepared butter into a ramekin and use a piece of architectural wood to add a design. Your butter will need to be soft for this application, so do this after you’ve smoothed it into a ramekin and before placing it in the refrigerator. Of course, your piece of wood should never have been used for anything else before.
Balls of Butter: Use a melon baller to prepare small ball-shaped servings. This will be possible, after your prepared butter has hard-set in the refrigerator.
Butter Buttons: To create the impression, I used a tool for moulding sugar for cakes or candy into button shapes. This is foam mould, but silicone moulds also work well. Push your butter into the shapes after it’s been prepared and is still soft. Scrape the excess and place in the refrigerator. Allow it to hard-set before removing them by popping them out from the rounded side. For the ones that didn’t come out the way I had hoped, I turned them upside down on the plate. I recommend preparing butter this way if you have a smaller number of guests.
Smooth Ramekins: Use a petite cheese knife or butter knife to smooth out you butter into ramekins. Any beautiful, food-safe bowl will do. Larger ramekins are simple and better for casual, family-style sharing. Single ounce ramekins would be nice for individual servings.
Stamp Impression: This is what I used for the ramekins in this post. After the butter had set in the refrigerator, I placed a stamp in the center and pressed in. They are easy to remove and clean with warm soap and water. Of course, I’ve only ever used these stamps for decorating food.
The last butter recipe is the fastest, easiest way to transform your butter into Honey Butter.
Mili’s Sweets Honey Butter Recipe
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, salted
two tablespoons of honey
Here’s what you’ll do:
Soften the stick of butter by warming it in the microwave for 8-10 seconds.
Use the scraping, paddle attachment of your standing mixer, add butter and honey. Mix at medium-low speed. Place in ramekin and refrigerate.
Another go to with this butter are classic buttermilk biscuits.
Link to my classic buttermilk, or vegan and gluten free biscuits.
I hope you enjoy this post! Thanks for being here.
