Butter vs. whey cream butter – what's the difference?

[Interrobang]

I was shopping for groceries last night, and noticed that, in addition to salted and unsalted butter, Tillamook sold something called whey cream butter. (No other butter vendors offered the whey cream option, at least not at Fred Meyer.)

Their web site talks a little bit about how it differs from regular salted butter:

Tillamook’s “Old Fashioned” Whey Cream Butter has been the preferred butter of the Tillamook farmers and community for over 50 years. The richer fuller flavor of “Old Fashioned” Whey Cream Butter comes from the cheese making process. The flavor reminds people of what hand churned butter used to taste like. Whey Cream Butter is made from the fat that remains in the liquid whey after the cheesemaking process is completed. The butterfat is separated from the whey, pasteurized, then churned. Salt is added to enhance flavor and preserve quality.

I was curious about the flavor of whey cream butter vs. regular butter. “Richer and fuller” doesn’t really convey much to me, probably because I’ve never had hand-churned butter. It was the same price as Tillamook’s other butters, and the nutritional information was exactly the same as the info for salted Tillamook butter. The only difference was the ingredient list.

So has anyone tried whey cream butter? Is there a more descriptive way to convey the difference between whey cream and regular salted butter? If I switch to whey cream butter, will my taste buds thank me?

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Never tried it myself, but I just wanted to stop by and give a round of applause for the American food industry, for finding a way to make a scarce delicacy out of a waste product. WTG, capitalism!

Here is a nifty website that describes all the things that the “food product design” industry can do with whey. Evidently it includes “butter”.

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/archive/1993/1093cs.html

What whey is.

http://www.nationaldairycouncil.org/medcent/722/722b.html

Whey, a by-product of cheese manufacturing, contains lactose, minerals (e.g., calcium, magnesium, phosphorus), vitamins, noncasein protein (except glycomacropeptide), and traces of milkfat(7,8).

When you make cheese down on the farm, the whey is usually fed to the pigs. You can also use whey to make ricotta cheese, by cooking it and congealing the protein that’s in it, so I would guess that “whey cream butter” would have somewhat of the same “taste explosion” :rolleyes: of ricotta cheese.

The flavor reminds people of what hand churned butter used to taste like.

Uh-huh. Check the label for “natural and artifical flavors”.

http://njnj.essortment.com/cheesemakingre_remb.htm

Genuine ricotta cheese is a by-product of the production of Parmesan and Romano cheese. It is made from the whey, a cloudy, watery substance that weeps out as the curd is cut and allowed to sit. The whey contains most of the protein from the milk and is a valuable food, often fed to pigs (think of Parma hams) and chickens or used to enrich soups and stews.

I suppose it’s possible that some enterprising Tillamook dairy farmer may have figured out a way during the post-World War II period to use whey to make ersatz “butter” for his family, probably with a big assist from all the 1950s developments in food technology such as guar and locust bean gums.

But actually, my money would be on some enterprising Tillamook food product designer.

So, what you’re getting, IB, is basically yet another “manufactured food product”, not anything remotely resembling “butter”, and not some hitherto unknown “ethnic” delicacy.

[Bumbazine]

Thanks for the links DDG.

I’m sure the millions of lactose-intolerant people in this country will be happy to learn that they’re figuring out ways to put lactose (whey) into even more types of foods, even hamburgers. :mad:

It’s getting to the point that if I don’t cook it myself, I’m afraid to eat it now.

Sorry for the hijack Interrobang!?

[astro]

Whey cream butter has an intriguingly delicate nutlike flavor of a good sherry infused with just the slighest tang and grass notes of a farm fresh cream cheese and a … actually I have no idea. Why don’t you try some and give us a report. You’ve made us quite curious.