In the canon of comeback lore, it’s no Martha Stewart, or Robert Downey Junior.
Still, butter is enjoying a renaissance, with slow but steady growth in consumption, and an increasingly rosy image thanks to celebrity chef endorsements and a surge in home baking. Statistics Canada notes that yearly per capita butter consumption has jumped from 5.7 pounds in 1997 to 6.4 pounds in 2011, an increase of roughly 12 per cent.
Expert baker Giselle Courteau has a theory on the burgeoning butter stats.
“I think people are more interested in, and caring more about, what they are eating,” says Courteau, co-owner of Duchess Bake Shop and Duchess Provisions.
Courteau notes that in the 1980s and 1990s, many people were butter averse, worried about overindulging in fat. Today, people still care about eating well, but there has been a move toward foods that are perceived as simple and clean. Butter fits the bill.
“It’s a shift in our attitude toward what we eat. People are more focused on making stuff from scratch and baking at home … and they are looking for what their moms used to make and butter just adds flavour that shortening doesn’t,” says Courteau.
Butter sales reflect that change. Gay Lea president Andrew MacGillivary says his company’s sales are up about four per cent in the last year, “big news in the dairy business.” He says butter price is also factor in the growth; retailers frequently put it on special to draw shoppers into the store, pumping sales.
He agrees with Courteau; butter’s rise is also rooted in perception. People are looking for cleaner, simpler foods such as organic products and products without additives.
“It’s hard to get a cleaner ingredient than a pound of unsalted butter,” says MacGillivary. “There is one ingredient, cream, churned. In today’s world, it is a clean, simple ingredient and I think that’s a big part of what consumers have, to some degree, gone back to.”
Indeed, some consumers (especially crazy bakers) favour butter with even more fat than usual. The butter in Canadian grocery stores typically has a fat content of 80 per cent. At Duchess Provisions, Courteau carries Sterling butter from Ontario, which has 84 per cent butter fat. (Here in Alberta, Foothills Creamery also produces an 84 per cent fat butter, but it’s only available in large quantities, suitable for commercial ventures.) In Europe, butter has a fat content as high as 86 per cent.
NAIT pastry chef Alan Dumonceaux, chair of the school’s baking program, says more fat means more flavour.
“That’s why, when you have a croissant in Paris, you really taste it, you really have that butter flavour,” says Dumonceaux, who just returned from a fact-finding mission in Paris — part of NAIT’s preparation to take part in the qualifying round for the 2015 Louis Lesaffre Cup, a prestigious baking competition.
“Flavour is by far the most important thing that butter provides.”
Plus, he says, butter has a more pleasing “mouth feel” than pastry margarines, which have what’s known as “palate cling.”
“It feels waxy on the roof of your mouth,” says Dumonceaux. “That’s because non-butter fats melt above body temperature, around 110F, so when you consume it you still have the waxy feeling.
“Butter melts at temperatures below body temperature, so when you eat it, you have a nice, satiated feeling in your mouth,” he says.
The butter bump could be linked to an increased interest in baking, a trend reflected in greater demand for the baking classes in the school’s continuing education programs. Even in the school of culinary arts, there’s been a shift.
“Twenty years ago, the primary thing (students) wanted to be was bread bakers, and now they want to be pastry chefs and cake decorators and that has a lot to do with the Food Network featuring that type of industry.”
Big Sugar Cookies
This recipe, reprinted with permission of Random House, is from the new cookbook, Butter Baked Goods. It’s written by Rosie Daykin, who owns Butter Baked Goods, a bakery and café with two locations in Vancouver. You will need two cookie sheets, lined with parchment paper, and a medium ice cream scoop, for this recipe. Makes 24 cookies.
Ingredients:
4 cups (1,000 mL) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons (7 mL) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt
3/4 cup (175 mL) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (175 mL) vegetable oil
2 cups (500 mL) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon (5 mL) pure vanilla
Coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Onto a large piece of parchment paper, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and oil on medium to high heat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the sugar and mix until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs one at a time and beat briefly after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat again to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Turn the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients and mix until fully combined. The dough should be quite pale in colour. Use the ice cream scoop to drop 24 equally sized portions of dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, about 1 1/2 inches (3 centimetres) apart. Use the palm of your hand to press down lightly on the top of each dough portion to flatten slightly, then sprinkle with a little sanding sugar.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes or until the cookies are lightly golden around the edges and cracked in the centre. Remove from the oven and transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool.
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