This discussion is one that is inspired by a previous one that I read/responded to on here. That discussion was an older one and didn’t seem to be attracting a lot of attention anymore but I found it intriguing so I wanted to revive the topic.
How do you use a stick of butter (or margarine) in your butter dish (if you use sticks)? Do you prefer scraping or slicing (cutting a portion from the end of the stick)? I slice or cut most of the time but scrape every once in a while. Slicing is cleaner and has less potential to make a mess but scraping is sometimes preferred if the butter is cold, or if I’m spreading it on bread and don’t want to tear it or have an excess amount of butter on one part of the bread.
My parents scrapped or sliced, whatever the situation was with the butter at the time. I learned from them and other family members about butter usage when growing up. I have an aunt who always seemed to prefer scraping, and it always got messy in the end.
I never really had a taste for butter and only have limited uses for it, usually toast, and I only use sticks, not tubs. I have always enjoyed the sensation of spreading butter.
Slice, here - it’s what I grew up doing. We had a guest a few years back who scraped, which I didn’t understand at all until I realized why she did it that way.
If we’re in a phase of using butter regularly at the table, I’ll set up my butter keeper (stick-shaped, sadly no longer available) which is much nicer than dealing with a cold stick of butter.
A lot of people have mentioned Butter Bells and think very highly of them. Not for me though, I’m particular about my butter and I like to use the stick in its natural element from a standard butter dish. That may sound silly but its one of my little nuances. Thanks for you input.
I slice because I like to keep track of the exact measurement of butter I’m using, whether to spread or sauté. Someone who scrapes ruins the measurement and harshes my mellow.
That’s funny because that same thing always annoyed me so much when I was growing up. I would get very irritated by it too and to this day I don’t know why it bothered me so much. It doesn’t have the same effect on me now though, the only thing I don’t like is when butter is left out for too long when its a warmer temperature all around and it starts to melt. Its becomes a nasty glob in the butter dish and I can’t stand that. I keep mine in the refrigerator and set it out for a little but before I’m going to use it.
I have always been a slicer, and was personally affronted the first time I encountered scraping - it’s so…imprecise.
Since then, I’ve learned to take a live-and-let-live attitude: if scraping works for you, do it! But for me, 90% of the butter I use is in cooking, and I can eyeball a teaspoon or a tablespoon or a 1/4c or whatever pretty well on an intact stick. If you’ve scraped off part of the stick’s integrity, I can’t be nearly so certain of the amount.
But whatever. My SO scrapes, and I’ve learned not to mind.
We keep our butter at room temperature in a standard butter thing. I guess we use it quickly enough that we’ve never had a problem. We slice the desired aliquot from the end, like civilized people have always done.
Slice, as I am usually using it for cooking, not for spreading.
Guess I left the last stick of butter out a bit too long - it started turning brown, which I’ve never seen before. I don’t usually let a stick of butter sit out for more than a week.
Decades of dieting behind me, way back to when I was helping my Dad try to control his weight. We don’t actually use much butter, so I keep the pound pack in the freezer and pull out a stick at a time. Even a stick lasts for three or more weeks commonly, so we keep it in the fridge in a snap lidded butter thingie.
The thing is, I start a new stick by slicing it into sixteen 1/2 tablespoon cubes (actually, they’re too tall to be ‘cubes’) using a wire cheese cutter. Then when we need butter, usually in cooking, we can pull out the amount needed in 1/2 T increments.
On the exceedingly rare occasions we’re going to spread it on bread, pulling the cubes out just a few minutes ahead of time allows them to soften enough to spread.
Exception made when we have company for dinner. Then we’ll put a whole stick of butter onto a saucer just like we were normal people, and the guests can manhandle it as they please.
I’ve been reading this wondering what, exactly, it means to scrape, and why you’d do that. And it suddenly came to me that people are using their butter to spread on bread and want thin curls to distribute it evenly.
From this, you might guess that almost all of our butter is used for cooking. I mean “cooking” rather broadly, including sprinkling the veggies with some butter before nuking them. And more formal stuff, like making cornbread.
I guess i spread butter on toast… Well, maybe half or a third of the sticks of butter we use have been used for buttering bread.
Anyway, no, we don’t scrape. And i like that it’s really easy to measure the butter when i need a precise measurement. So i hope you don’t scrape my butter stick, either. But it’s unlikely to be on the table when you visit.
