Butter

is a made from the fat and  components of churned. It is a semi-solid at, consisting of approximately 80%. It is used at room temperature as a, melted as a , and used as an ingredient in , making, , and other cooking procedures.

Most frequently made from milk, butter can also be manufactured from the milk of other, including , , , and. It is made by milk or cream to separate the fat globules from the. and are sometimes added to butter. butter, removing the water and, produces or , which is almost entirely butterfat.

Butter is a water-in-oil emulsion resulting from an inversion of the cream, where the milk proteins are the emulsifiers. Butter remains a firm solid when, but softens to a spreadable consistency at , and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32 to 35 C. The density of butter is 911 g/L. It generally has a pale yellow color, but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. Its natural, unmodified color is dependent on the source animal's feed and genetics, but the commercial manufacturing process sometimes manipulates the color with food colorings like or.

Etymology
The word butter derives (via ) from the Latin butyrum, which is the of the  βούτυρον (bouturon). This may be a compound of βοῦς (bous), "ox, cow" + τυρός (turos), "cheese", that is "cow-cheese". The word turos ("cheese") is attested in. The latinized form is found in the name, a compound found in butter and dairy products such as.

Production
milk and cream contain in  globules. These globules are surrounded by membranes made of  and, which prevent the fat in milk from pooling together into a single mass. Butter is produced by agitating cream, which damages these membranes and allows the milk fats to conjoin, separating from the other parts of the cream. Variations in the production method will create butters with different consistencies, mostly due to the butterfat composition in the finished product. Butter contains fat in three separate forms: free butterfat, butterfat, and undamaged fat globules. In the finished product, different proportions of these forms result in different consistencies within the butter; butters with many crystals are harder than butters dominated by free fats.

Churning produces small butter grains floating in the water-based portion of the cream. This watery liquid is called —although the buttermilk most common today is instead a directly fermented skimmed milk. The buttermilk is drained off; sometimes more buttermilk is removed by rinsing the grains with water. Then the grains are "worked": pressed and kneaded together. When prepared manually, this is done using wooden boards called. 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 is a mixture of, a tri derived from and three of any of several  groups.

Types
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 convert  into. The fermentation process produces additional aroma compounds, including, which makes for a fuller-flavored and more "buttery" tasting product.

Dairy products are often during production to kill  bacteria and other. 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 and the mechanical.

Cultured butter is preferred throughout, while sweet cream butter dominates in the United States and the United Kingdom. Cultured butter is sometimes labeled "European-style" butter in the United States, although cultured butter is made and sold by some, especially Amish, dairies. Commercial raw cream butter is virtually unheard of in the United States. Raw cream butter is generally only found made at home by consumers who have purchased raw whole milk directly from dairy farmers, skimmed the cream themselves, and made butter with it. It is rare in Europe as well.

Clarified butter
has almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its and then allowing it to cool; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, form a skin, which is removed. The resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and proteins that settle to the bottom.

is clarified butter that has been heated to around 120 °C (250 °F) after the water evaporated, turning the milk solids brown. This process flavors the ghee, and also produces that help protect it from rancidity. Because of this, ghee can be kept for six to eight months under normal conditions.

Whey butter
Cream may be separated (usually by a centrifuge or a sedimentation) from instead of milk, as a  of cheese-making. Whey butter may be made from whey cream. Whey cream and butter have a lower fat content and taste more salty, tangy and "cheesy". They are also cheaper than "sweet" cream and butter. The fat content of whey is low, so 1000 pounds of whey will typically give 3 pounds of butter.

European butters
There are several butters produced in Europe with ; these include:
 * , from
 * , from France
 * (Which also includes: Beurre des Charentes and Beurre des Deux-Sèvres under the same classification), from France
 * , from
 * , from Spain
 * , from Spain
 * (Rucavas baltais sviests), from

History


The earliest butter would have been from sheep or goat's milk; cattle are not thought to have been for another thousand years.

In the, unclarified butter spoils quickly, unlike cheese, so it is not a practical method of preserving the nutrients of milk. The ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to have considered butter a food fit more for the northern s. A play by the Greek comic poet refers to  as boutyrophagoi, "butter-eaters". In his , calls butter "the most delicate of food among barbarous nations" and goes on to describe its medicinal properties. Later, the physician also described butter as a medicinal agent only.

Middle Ages
In the cooler climates of northern Europe, people could store butter longer before it spoiled. has the oldest tradition in Europe of butter export trade, dating at least to the 12th century. After the fall of Rome and through much of the, butter was a common food across most of Europe—but had a low reputation, and so was consumed principally by s. Butter slowly became more accepted by the upper class, notably when the early 16th century allowed its consumption during. Bread and butter became common fare among the middle class and the English, in particular, gained a reputation for their liberal use of melted butter as a sauce with meat and vegetables.

In antiquity, butter was used for fuel in lamps, as a substitute for oil. The Butter Tower of was erected in the early 16th century when Archbishop  authorized the burning of butter during Lent, instead of oil, which was scarce at the time.

Across northern Europe, butter was sometimes treated in a manner unheard-of today: it was packed into barrels ([[wikt:Special:Search/firkin|firkins}}) and buried in, perhaps for years. Such "" would develop a strong flavor as it aged, but remain edible, in large part because of the unique cool, airless, and  environment of a peat bog. Firkins of such buried butter are a common archaeological find in Ireland; the  has some containing "a grayish cheese-like substance, partially hardened, not much like butter, and quite free from putrefaction." The practice was most common in Ireland in the 11th–14th centuries; it ended entirely before the 19th century.

Nutritional information
As butter is essentially just the milk fat, it contains only traces of, so moderate consumption of butter is not a problem for people. People with may still need to avoid butter, which contains enough of the allergy-causing proteins to cause reactions. Whole milk, butter and have high levels of.

In cooking and gastronomy
Butter has been considered indispensable in since the 17th century. Chefs and cooks have extolled its importance: said "Donnez-moi du beurre, encore du beurre, toujours du beurre!" ('Give me butter, more butter, still more butter!'); said "With enough butter, anything is good."

Melted butter plays an important role in the preparation of, notably in. ' (hazelnut butter) and ' (black butter) are sauces of melted butter cooked until the milk solids and sugars have turned golden or dark brown; they are often finished with an addition of vinegar or. and sauces are  of egg yolk and melted butter. Hollandaise and béarnaise sauces are stabilized with the powerful in the egg yolks, but butter itself contains enough emulsifiers—mostly remnants of the fat globule membranes—to form a stable emulsion on its own.

 (white butter) is made by whisking butter into reduced vinegar or wine, forming an emulsion with the texture of thick cream.  (prepared butter) is melted but still emulsified butter; it lends its name to the practice of "mounting" a sauce with butter: whisking cold butter into any water-based sauce at the end of cooking, giving the sauce a thicker body and a glossy shine—as well as a buttery taste.

Butter is used for and, although its milk solids brown and burn above 150 °C (250 °F)—a rather low temperature for most applications. The of butterfat is around 200 °C (400 °F), so clarified butter or ghee is better suited to frying.

Butter fills several roles in, where it is used in a similar manner as other solid fats like , , or , but has a flavor that may better complement sweet baked goods.

= =