How are you supposed to actually use butter?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

I usually just use fake Lurpak from Aldi for day-to-day sandwiches but for when I’m feeling fancy I keep a block of proper butter with salt crystals in it, in the fridge (I keep it in the fridge because one block lasts me months, no-one else eats it). I get it out hours in advance and even when it’s at room temperature it’s still hard enough that I could probably break a window with it. I’ve had my block out since yesterday morning and it’s still not spreadable

Is there a trick to being able to use it or what?

Warm the knife under the hot tap

I have Le president spreadable in the fridge and then fancy butter in a butterdish out on the worktop

I keep mine in an old fashioned butter dish with lid somewhere cool but not cold. It eventually softens. It never lasts long enough to worry about it going off.

I'm the only one that uses butter, so I just cut a little bit and pop in the microwave for 10 seconds to help it warm up a bit from the fridge. 15 max.

Ours stays out. If it’s cold then it goes in the microwave for ten seconds or I just cut slivvers off.

If I have a block of butter I would usually leave most of it in the fridge but cut off maybe one 6th at a time and leave that out at room temperature. It can’t be spread right away but maybe by tomorrow it is ok to use for the next 4 days or whatever - until it’s used up or until it starts to look a bit manky.

We don’t have a microwave anymore after we realised that all it ever got used for was cooking peas 🤣

I keep mine in a butterdish in my (fairly warm) kitchen. Like a PP, we eat it far too quickly to worry about it going rancid.

But surely after 36 hours of being out, it would have softened by now?

How cold is your house? I am refusing to pop the heating on but the house is v cold at the moment so suspect the butter is quite hard right now.

I find that if you freeze butter then defrost it becomes more spreadable. Ideally butter is being slathered on toast so I just put it between two hot slices and wait 30s

We only have butter, never use spread - butter much healthier. Ours is always spreadable from leaving it out

I love fridge-cold butter and cut thinnish slices of it straight from the fridge to lay onto my toast.
(I use Nigella's 'double butter' technique if the first lot melts into the toast. Am also a fan of the saying that you should be able to see teeth marks in the butter as you eat your toast. )

We have a butter dish but in winter it’s still not spreadable. I use an old fashioned butter curler. Honestly it’s a thing, albeit a Victorian thing. It’s like a mini cheese mandolin but with fluted ridges. It increases the surface area of the butter and promotes softening.

When I buy it I unwrap it a block and portion it up into four or six pieces, then re wrap and freeze it. I take out one piece at a time and keep it in a lidded butter dish on the countertop.

I always have butter in the freezer, I buy it when it is on special offer, portioned up it is there when I need to use it for cooking as well as spreading. You do have to remember to take out what you need in good time though.

We only use real butter and it lives in a butter dish on the counter, always spreadable except maybe in the dead of winter

Get one of those butter knives with holes in, they work on cold butter.

We hardly use butter - but just now it's new potatoes and butter time :) I freeze butter in slices and take it out a slice at a time. Lasts ages here. Would never put butter in a sandwich. That's what hummous/chutney/mustard is for.

Sorry, can't work out how to edit my last message.

They make scraping to spread much easier in my experience.

I have an old fashioned butter curler thingy too, which gives beautiful little curls to spread. I found the curler on eBay.

I also make my own version of spreadable by beating butter and oil (a combination of sunflower and olive) in the food processor, which is an easy option for spreading.

Cut bits off the block and put them in the butter dish. Estimate what you'd use in a few days, maybe 50g? Or 25g?

That way you've always got some at room temperature but you're not keeping a whole block out.

I have a French butter crock (although available on Amazon). The butter dish is covered in water and the butter stays at the temperature of the water - ie cool but spreadable. It means the butter is kept out all the time and is always spreadable but never goes rancid. It’s one of my favourite things

I’ve looked at those but it says you should change the water every day and there’s no way I’d ever remember to do that 🤣

It's really weird that yours is still rock hard after all this time out. I know the weather is rubbish but I can't believe it's less than 20c in your house.

Our butter stays out in a butterdish 24/7 and now I need to go and have a slice of bread with butter and honey on it with a cup of tea.

I use a sharp knife and slice it. The fact that it doesn’t slice thinly is my excuse to be a greedy pig.