The Meals & Wine take a look at kitchen makes use of an entire lot of butter: about 1,500 kilos a yr, to be actual. You might suppose we completely use an assortment of high-end, costly European butters, however there’s in actual fact just one model that we depend on for recipe improvement, testing, and pictures. And it’s probably the most recognizable, extensively out there butters within the nation.

Why we use Land O’Lakes Butter

Whether or not we’re testing buttery cookies or creamy pasta, our stick of alternative is unsalted butter from Land O’Lakes. The corporate was fashioned in 1921 in Minnesota when 320 dairy farmers joined collectively to create a cooperative. At the moment it is among the largest co-ops in America and contains greater than 1,000 dairy farmers throughout the nation, together with agricultural producers and retail homeowners.

Right here’s why it’s our butter of alternative, in response to take a look at kitchen employees.

Consistency is essential 

Land O’Lakes is offered to house cooks throughout the nation, who know what they’re shopping for each time. “[Land o Lakes] by some means cracked the code on make their butter constant from stick to stay,” says Julia Levy, a senior recipe tester and developer at Folks Inc., the father or mother firm of Meals & Wine. 

“The fats proportion in butter can fluctuate by model, so it’s essential to standardize variables, particularly in baking recipes,” provides Callie Nash, the take a look at kitchen director of Folks Inc. At 80%, Land O’Lakes has a regular fats content material for American-style butter.

That consistency is extremely essential for creating recipes which are examined quite a few instances by a number of testers and builders. Utilizing a model with a barely totally different fats content material, salt degree, and even taste can impression the intensive recipe testing course of. From compound butters to chewy cookies, the standard and consistency of the butter makes a big distinction to the ultimate end result. 

Anna Theoktisto, portfolio supervisor and recipe developer of Folks Inc., provides that Land O’Lakes has a comparatively low water content material in comparison with some generic manufacturers, which implies much less popping or exploding when melting.

If you’d like test-kitchen consistency at house, Land O’Lakes will provide you with comparable outcomes every time you bake a cake or make a pan sauce. 

Prime quality at a low value level

A constant product would imply little if it was, nicely, persistently mediocre. However that isn’t the case with Land O’Lakes, particularly contemplating you’ll find it for $5 at nearly any grocery retailer. It tastes precisely like what you’d anticipate good butter to style like: milky, wealthy and barely candy with out the tangy or earthy flavors that you could be discover in another manufacturers. It’s scrumptious by itself, unfold in your breakfast toast or pancakes, and doesn’t overpower the opposite flavors when integrated into baked items or frostings. 

Don’t simply take our phrase for it — it’s Jacques Pépin’s favourite butter for baking.