Yahoo Lifestyle I Asked 4 Pro Bakers for the Best Butter for Cookies, and One Brand Dominated the Vote
Your holiday cookies just got even better.
If you’ve wandered through the dairy aisle lately, you may have noticed there are more options than ever when it comes to one timeless staple: butter. When you consider the fact that every stick, tub, or brick is made from just one base ingredient—churned milk or cream—you might find yourself wondering, “Why do we need all of these alternatives?”d
Turns out, what sounds like a simple category allows for a lot of flexibility. To qualify as “butter,” a product must be made with at least 80% fat, according to the USDA. But to earn shelf space in that section, companies have a lot of wiggle room in terms of not only how much more fat they add, but whether they include salt, if they opt for plant-based substitutions, if they trade in oil for dairy (aka margarine), if they whip in air, or if they tweak their formulations in some other way. If they’re billed as “butter product” or “plant-based butter,” the limits are very lenient.
All of this flexibility is nice for shoppers who want to date around and find their best match based on their dietary and taste preferences. However, it’s not so kind for those who are befuddled by all of the choices and don’t want to spend the time or the money experimenting with every item in the aisle.
Enter: Our ultimate butter guides. Last spring, we tapped 7 chefs to spill about their pick for the best butter for across-the-board use. They agreed with Martha Stewart, Bobby Flay, Stanley Tucci, and Allrecipes Allstars that Kerrygold Irish Butter earns the crown.
But with holiday baking season around the corner, we couldn’t resist asking some off the country’s best bakers what they trust for their cookies (a recipe that heavily relies on the flavor and moisture level of the fat source to impart rich flavor, to deliver a flaky, tender texture, and to not spread too much).
Ahead, we’re directing traffic in the butter aisle to point you toward your best buy—plus three other solid investments—all of which create crave-worthy cookies.
Meet Our Butter-Judging Bakers
Justine Doiron, the Brooklyn, New York-based author of “Justine Cooks”
Amy Emberling, managing partner at Zingerman’s Bakehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Peter Som, award-winning fashion designer, culinary creator, lifestyle expert, and the author of the upcoming cookbook "Family Style"
Gracie von Kriegenbergh, baker and owner of The Kookee Batch in La Quinta, California
The Qualities of the Best Butter For Baking
Inspecting a few small details will go a long way to help you sort through all of the sticks and spreads. When you’re purchasing butter for cookies, the bakers we spoke to suggest seeking out brands with the following features that match your preferences:
Fat content: All four bakers agree that fat content is key. A higher butterfat means less water content, explains Peter Som. A butter that packs enough fat will help you avoid cookies that spread far outside of their boundaries. Plus, butter with high levels of butterfat delivers a richer, more concentrated flavor and a brighter color. Som reaches for European-style butter since it is regulated and must have 82% to 90% butterfat to meet European Union (EU) standards.
Flavor: The butter you buy should be one that you enjoy eating in its purest form. Whether you’re using it to slather on a bagel, to cook your omelet, or to mix into cookie dough, “a high-quality butter is a high-quality butter, and you'll be able to taste that quality across anything you use it for,” says Justine Doiron.
Grade: It’s worth it to splurge on flavorful Grade AA butter if you can source it, adds Amy Emberling. If you can’t find that on the label, simply compare prices. You’ll want to steer clear of anything starkly cheaper than the rest of the market, as “less expensive brands tend to have less fat content,” and can be more unpredictable, according to Gracie von Kriegenbergh.
The salt level you desire: Emberling and Som stick with unsalted so that they can control the salt quantity in their cookies. But Dorion delights in salted; as might anyone else who gravitates to sweet-salty bakes. Be sure to snag a package wisely based on your personal preference or based on what your cookie recipe specifies.
The Best Butter for Cookies, According to Bakers
Earning three votes from our four bakers, the best butter for cookies is Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. Emberling appreciates the “great flavor” due to the fact that it’s made from dairy from grass-fed cows, and notes that Kerrygold “is very creamy.” Dorion and Som also frequently stock up on Kerrygold, and appreciate its wide availability and the fact that they can trust it to turn out consistent, delicious, and tender baked goods.
The runners-up, that each earned one vote, include:
Plugrà Premium Butter: Another 82% butterfat European butter.
Miyoko’s Oat Milk Butters: For a dairy-free alternative that tastes amazing and blows Dorion away since “it's a plant-based butter that browns!”
Ralph’s Kroeger Sweet Cream Butter: A more affordable Grade AA store brand that can bake almost toe-to-toe with its European competitors, according to von Kriegenbergh.
How to Celebrate Butter While Baking Cookies
We couldn’t resist asking the bakers to reveal their menu MVPs when holiday cookie season rolls around. In case you could use some inspiration for your cookie tray or food gifts this year, these ideas really allow your best butter to shine:
Shortbread (“Butter truly shines in shortbread, so my go-to Kerrygold can strut its stuff,” Emberling confirms.)
Pro Tips for Baking Cookies With Butter
No matter if you’re starting with Kerrygold, Miyokos, or one of the many other butters or butter alternatives on the market, these pro tips will come in handy come cookie season (or any time you bake a batch):
When in doubt, start with softened: If a recipe calls for room temperature or softened butter, ”this is not a minor detail you can glaze over, and this is not the same thing as melted butter,” Som says. Creaming together sugar and softened butter takes far less time and elbow grease. In addition, creaming involves whipping air into the butter and sugar, “and softened butter aerates quicker and better than cold butter does,” Dorion says. For more on the best way to soften butter, you can read our guide here.
Brown the butter for extra depth of flavor: Some cookie recipes call for cooled melted butter, and if yours does, try browning the butter “to add a caramel color to them,” von Kriegenbergh suggests. “Brown butter elevates the cookie and adds a nuttiness to the flavor.”
Allow the dough to chill out before baking: “Some cookies are chilled before baking, but this has more to do with the type of cookie and the desired effect than the butter itself,” Emberling says. Chilling cookie dough tends to intensify the flavor a bit, reduces the risk for extreme spreading, and makes the dough easier to work with. “Read your recipe carefully,” Som says, to see if it advises chilling; times can vary from as little as 30 minutes to over 24 hours.
