I can believe it's butter
February 24, 2010 9:25 PM   Subscribe

I have a lot of butter and need to use it, preferably to feed people. Recipes please?

I have at my disposal, about 10 pounds of unsalted butter, and I would like to use as soon as possible in my cooking. I've already used 1 pound for a pound cake that I will be taking to work tomorrow.

Any other ideas that use close to a pound of butter in the recipe?
posted by abdulf to Food & Drink (32 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Only uses a half-pound at a shot, but Gale Gand's Millionaire Shortbread is completely delectable.
posted by spinturtle at 9:28 PM on February 24, 2010


Well, you hit my #1 suggestion already with a pound cake. I'd also suggest a cake with butter-cream frosting... that stuff uses up butter like a champ.

The best answer is: "freeze it". Trying to use 10 pounds of butter quickly is unnecessary if you have a little freezer space available. It'll keep for a couple months and you can use it at your leisure without killing yourself/anyone. We freeze our butter by default because we use it fairly slowly and have never noticed any change in deliciousness or texture (once thawed, of course).
posted by pkingdesign at 9:29 PM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


Google Paula Deen recipes.
posted by amro at 9:38 PM on February 24, 2010 [3 favorites]


(Many of her recipes use a lot of butter, including all the various varieties of Gooey Butter Cake.)
posted by amro at 9:41 PM on February 24, 2010


Butter keeps for about 6 months in the freezer. Really, you don't have to use up 10 pounds at once.

That said, you might try Tomato Butter Sauce.

Ingredients: canned tomatoes, one onion, butter.

Empty one can of good canned tomatoes (diced or whole, but you should try to break up whole tomatoes) in a sauce pan. Add one medium, peeled, halved onion and 5-6 tablespoons of butter (some people use an entire stick). Heat up and then reduce to a soft, rolling simmer for about 45-60 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste to the final, velvety reduced sauce. Eat the onion before serving the sauce to your guests on any pasta (cook's privilege).

After you make your first batch, you'll want to make more. A pound of butter should be gone in no time.
posted by maudlin at 9:44 PM on February 24, 2010 [5 favorites]


Fudge calls for a _lot_ of butter.

Also buttercream frosting, for cakes or cookies.

I hear butter is nice on freshly-baked bread, too; an underrated delicacy!
posted by amtho at 9:50 PM on February 24, 2010


Hey y'all, my name is Paula Deen and I luvvv butter so much I've got a recipe fer Fried Butter Balls. Ten pounds of butter ain't got nuthin' on me.

Seriously, she LOVES butter. Make a few of her recipes and you'll be out of butter in no time.
posted by sallybrown at 9:52 PM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]


Ooey Gooey Butter Cake uses two sticks (1/2lb).

Decadently rich brownies use three sticks (3/4lb).

Toffee Brown Butter Brownies uses 2 1/2 sticks, and 2 more if you make your own toffee bits (1+lbs).

Croissants use 2 1/2 sticks, but you can probably spread the remaining 1 1/2 sticks on the croissants when they are hot and dellllicious (1lb).
posted by banannafish at 9:57 PM on February 24, 2010


Any kind of cake will easily use up 1-2 sticks of butter!
posted by astapasta24 at 10:16 PM on February 24, 2010


A full stick of butter + a pound of shrimp + as much pepper as you can reasonably grind yourself == tasty pepper shrimp, and leftover butter sauce to wilt some chard in.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 10:19 PM on February 24, 2010


Brioche. Specifically Rich Man's Brioche, which has equal parts butter to flour. Delightful stuff, although you have to work fast or it will melt in your hand. These make fantastic buns that you can fill with any number of fillings to make sweet or savory buns, you can also make loaves, incredibly sinful cinnamon buns, or just about any pastry you can imagine.

Pasta and baked goods with browned butter. Financiers are a good example.

Tarte tatin. Puff pastry. Any number of pound and bundt cakes.
posted by hindmost at 10:29 PM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


You could also make some ghee to use in your other cooking. It keeps quite a while in the fridge, and you can freeze it too.
posted by crabintheocean at 10:44 PM on February 24, 2010 [1 favorite]


Butter-poached lobster.
posted by nicwolff at 11:03 PM on February 24, 2010


Puff pastry?

Sure, it's easy to buy, but it's kind of impressive to make.
posted by R a c h e l at 11:07 PM on February 24, 2010


one medium-sized inflatable pool
4-5 open-minded attractive young people
10 pounds of butter
cocktails

mix liberally.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:25 PM on February 24, 2010 [2 favorites]


I watched a French cooking show where a guy cooked a delicious looking steak in what must have been two kilos of butter. I bet it tasted awesome, and I've always wanted to try it.
posted by Admira at 12:05 AM on February 25, 2010


Second making ghee.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:07 AM on February 25, 2010


Butter-poached chicken. Serve with plenty of bread for mopping up.

Along similar lines, look for meat, poultry, and fish dishes that incorporate beurre blanc, beurre noisette, or beurre noir. Each is simply butter heated to a varying degree of "doneness," often turned into a simple sauce through the addition of a few other ingredients, or sometimes only salt or lemon.

Pound some of the butter with your favored herbs and some salt, and store in the fridge or freezer, to be (e.g.) taken out and swirled lump by lump with wine or stock into the pan residue from cooking meat, then pour over meat and serve.

Freeze as much as you can.
posted by hat at 12:09 AM on February 25, 2010


Brown butter sauce goes with a great many things. It is composed entirely of butter, heat, and spices. Ravioli and gnocchi work especially well.

But seriously, just freeze it.
posted by Bobicus at 12:17 AM on February 25, 2010


One good butter-intensive thing: pie crust. You can make loads and loads and loads and then freeze it – and it's ridiculously versatile: fruit pies, meat pies, calzones... pretty much any meal is tasty when put in a pie.
posted by koeselitz at 12:35 AM on February 25, 2010


Although, yes: butter freezes really well.
posted by koeselitz at 12:35 AM on February 25, 2010


Hungarian Dobos Torte with butter-rich chocolate filling.
posted by benzenedream at 1:10 AM on February 25, 2010


Also, pierogies.
posted by benzenedream at 1:11 AM on February 25, 2010


Clarified butter is great to cook with and has a higher smoke point than regular butter. It's my understanding that it also lasts for ages.

If it were me, I'd probably go ahead and devote at least a pound to that, maybe two.

You can also make compound butters; if you decide to go the freezing route, which just means you let the butter soften and then whip in herbs for flavoring. You then freeze it and you can cut little pieces to put on a piece of meat or fish or vegetable after it's cooked.

I might go with tarragon, a bit of shallot, a tiny bit of garlic, salt and pepper, maybe a pinch of white wine or splash of lemon, or some grated lemon zest. That seems all purpose enough that you could use it in a variety of contexts for sudden culinary awesomeness. It isn't something you have to be really scientific about, it's essentially a garnish, but a really good one.

The other compound butter I like a lot is mustard butter, which is butter mixed with mustard, garlic, salt and pepper, maybe lemon. This is absolutely awesome on broccoli.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:44 AM on February 25, 2010 [5 favorites]


nthing making ghee. It's delicious in everything, and lasts for ages, even outside the fridge!
posted by HFSH at 5:42 AM on February 25, 2010


How'd you get so much butter???? I slather butter on the best bread I can find. Make scrambled eggs with dill and butter. Seconding everyone who said butter cream frosting... mmmmm butter.
posted by mokeydraws at 7:07 AM on February 25, 2010


What my family calls Swedish apple pie (one of my former boyfriends called it apple goodness):

5-6 apples
1 stick butter
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350oF.
Melt butter on stove or in microwave, allow to cool while you deal with apples.
Peel, core and chop 5-6 apples. Place in pie plate. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Add flour and sugar to bowl, mix. Add butter and egg to bowl and mix. Put in fridge for about 15 minutes. Remove from fridge, pull out a piece about the size of two eggs and pat it between your hands until 0.5-1.0cm thick. Place on apples. Continue to do this until you've covered your apples with dough.

Bake for 45-60 minutes - you'll know it is done when the kitchen smells awesome and the crust is golden brown and the apples happily bubbling.

Modifications:
I've put blendered almonds in the batter. I've used brown sugar instead of white sugar. I've added oatmeal to the batter. I've added a tiny bit of ground cardamom to the batter.
I've used: peaches, plums, raspberries, a few cranberries, pears, apricots, ... you get the idea. Plums are pretty awesome because they're sweetly sour and contrast with the sugar cookie-ness of the crust.

If you want you can make this in a larger dish and with more fruit, just scale up the batter amount.
posted by sciencegeek at 7:39 AM on February 25, 2010 [2 favorites]


Browned butter (beurre noisette) is fantastic on just about everything, especially on fish. Take however much butter you want, drop it in a saucepan, and heat it over med-low heat, stirring slowly. Meanwhile, get a pan or big bowl of ice water ready. The butter will eventually turn to a beautiful hazelnut brown. When all of it is deep golden, but not yet burned, pull the pan from the burner and dunk the bottom in the ice water to stop the cooking. It's great plain, but because of the high fat content it also picks up all sorts of flavors, so you can add whatever herbs or acids or any other flavors, really, and it will pick them up beautifully. Try one with a bit of lime zest over salmon.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:05 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


Try a Baklava recipe , a pound of butter for one tray and sinfully delicious.
posted by VickyR at 9:46 AM on February 25, 2010


Cookies, cookies, cookies. Yummy sugar cookies or oatmeal cookies sometimes take two sticks of butter. You could go through that a lot of butter in a good weekend of cookie baking. Freeze the rest.
posted by seventyfour at 9:57 AM on February 25, 2010


I recently found out how much butter Nanaimo bars contain. Sooo delicious.
posted by ecsh at 1:20 PM on February 25, 2010


Brown butter rice krispy treats use a lot of butter and are insanely delicious.
posted by eleanna at 2:44 PM on February 25, 2010


« Older Using Excel to create the body of an Outlook...   |   How should I send my job application via email? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.