‘It just wasn’t very buttery’: the best (and worst) unsalted butter, tasted and rated | The food filter

Which supermarket unsalted butter leaves a sour taste, and whose is the fat of the land? Our very own baking ace churns through the contenders

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Unsalted butter is easily one of my most used ingredients. At any given time, I have at least four blocks in my fridge, ready to be softened and whipped into cakes or rubbed into flour for pastry. There is a camp of people who prefer to use salted butter for baking, and while there are definitely instances where that has its place (think shortbread and cookies), I find it much easier and more consistent to be able to control the salt level myself, especially because it varies so much between brands.

However, I tasted each butter on its own (much harder than you think!) and spread it on a plain cracker. The differences between them were much more subtle than I’d been expecting and, for the most part, it was hard to tell which was which. I don’t think you can go too wrong when deciding what to choose, especially if you’re using the butter in baking. But, personally, I avoid those newly downsized 200g blocks – they can work out to nearly double the price a kilo!