Artisan Bread Recipe and Flavored (Compound) Butters (2024)

FAQs

What does adding butter to bread dough do? ›

Butter, technically a dough enrichment, tenderizes bread dough and limits gluten development, yielding a softer, more tender crumb and a richer flavor. The butter in this sourdough babka dough makes the interior tender—and delicious. Photo by Maurizio Leo.

Compound Butter Uses

Here are a just a few ways to use it: Spread it on bread, toast, muffins, scones, biscuits, and more. Melt it and use it as a flavor enhancer for meat, fish, or vegetables. Use it as an ingredient in baked goods or rich sauces.

So, compound butter is butter combined with at least one additional ingredient. However, most compound butter recipes will include several ingredients. Depending on the ingredients you add, you can make your compound sweet or savory.

Diacetyl is a naturally occurring substance that gives butter its characteristic flavor and aroma, and is often a component of artificial flavoring formulations. Acetoin, a closely related chemical, also occurs naturally and is an ingredient in many flavoring formulations, perfumes and essences.

Topping bread dough with seeds and grains is a simple and effective way to increase the nutrition, flavor, and texture in a baked loaf of bread. Most of us have experimented with mixing seeds, nuts, dried fruit, and even other grains into bread dough.

The spongy texture and moist flavor that oil creates can be a boon to certain recipes. Not to mention oil is cheaper and easier to work with. Butter will always provide superior flavor and that melt-in-your-mouth texture. In many recipes, combining the two gives the best of both worlds.

Compound butters (French: beurre composé, pl. beurres composés) are mixtures of butter and other ingredients used as a flavoring, in a fashion similar to a sauce.

Enriched bread recipes may do best with European-style butter that has a high-fat concentration and can tolerate the kneading process without breaking into bits. However, recipes like cinnamon coffee scones may do better with American-style butters that have higher water content to help create air pockets.

Bring your butter to room temperature.

Cold butter won't blend with your mix-ins, and melted butter won't keep its consistency to hold them in place. Room temperature is like Goldilocks and the Three Bears: not too cold and not too hot.

Compound butter can be kept refrigerated for several days. They can also be frozen for several months by being wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in plastic freezer bags.

Why do chefs use compound butter? ›

Compound butter or “beurre composse” in French is simply unsalted butter mixed with other ingredients that add sweet or savory flavor, like honey, herbs, or garlic. This creamy spread can be easily added to meats, and sauces sides to add extra flavor.

Once the compound recipe is complete, you must store butter in the refrigerator as you normally would. In many cases, herb-infused compound butter can last up to two months in the refrigerator. However, storage time really depends on the ingredients you've included in the compound butter recipe.

Combine 1/3 cup of butter and one cup of vodka in a saucepan. Melt them together over low heat to ensure the alcohol won't evaporate. Once it's fully combined, let it sit at room temperature for 5 hours.

Diacetyl (/daɪjəˈsiːtəl/ dy-yuh-SEE-tuhl; IUPAC systematic name: butanedione or butane-2,3-dione) is an organic compound with the chemical formula (CH₃CO)₂. It is a yellow liquid with an intensely buttery flavor.

It's more commonly known as margarine, and in my opinion it is to be avoided. It's made from vegetable oil and the solid forms are from hydrogenated oil, but all of this substance has been chemically treated and altered beyond natural recognition.

The dough is kneaded for 3 – 4 minutes depending on the amount of dough and other ingredients in it. After the initial kneading the softened butter is added and 'torn in'. It is slightly messy to begin with as you must squeeze the dough and butter together until they are combined.

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Why do people use milk or melted butter in bread dough as opposed to water? Fat, as in butter, lard, olive oil, helps tenderize the bread by coating the particles of flour, preventing them from forming a stronger gluten network.