Whether stirred into mash, whisked into a glossy sauce or spread thickly onto warm toast, butter somehow manages to be both a kitchen essential and a melt-in-your-mouth luxury. Check out these top ten butter recipes and you’ll see what we mean... Along with flour, butter is key to traditional French cookery. Roux - the base of many classic sauces - is made by cooking butter and flour together. You can also whisk a paste made from uncooked butter and flour into your sauce should it need extra thickening - this paste is called beurre manié. Try jazzing up your steak and chips with a buttery hollandaise or béarnaise sauce, made by whisking egg yolks with melted clarified butter. Butter is also essential for cake baking, for folding between layers of dough to make crisp and delicate puff pastry, and clarified to make ghee – one of the main cooking fats in Indian cookery. And finally, for a simple fish sauce, try cooking a little butter to a nut-brown shade (beurre noisette); splash it with a little lemon to set the colour and drizzle over your favourite fish – delish!
A classic egg-based sauce from Tamasin Day-Lewis - rich, buttery and pungently flavoured with vinegar, shallot, peppercorns and tarragon
Try some of our favourite buttery recipes to enrich your cooking.
For a fluffy mash, rich with butter, this recipe by Nigel Slater is the one for you
Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without lashings of brandy butter, so Clodagh McKenna's simple recipe is perfect for festive dining
Try this recipe from Ed Baines for rich, buttery puff pastry and discover just how delicious home-made pastry can be
Try some of our favourite buttery recipes to enrich your cooking.
Melting garlic butter inside crisp-crumbed chicken makes James Martin's tempting take on chicken Kiev totally irresistible!
For a classic brunch treat try Ed Baines's recipe for poached eggs, ham and muffins topped with home-made Hollandaise sauce
Turn your back on temptation because this sensational, sticky ginger cake from Sophie Grigson gets even better if stored for several days!
For a terrific treat to accompany a cuppa, Mary Berry bakes buttery golden shortbread the traditional Scottish way
