Butter left out in a butter dish

[RedPringleGirl]

I have always kept my butter out in a butter dish with a lid. For as long as I can remember this was the done thing in order to have spreadable real butter. I literally thought this was what butter dishes were invented for.

Just read that you're not actually supposed to keep butter out for longer than 2 days.

How did I not know this!!! Mine stays out for weeks sometimes until the butter is all used up.

Well noone's dropped dead yet which I'll take as as a good sign. But please tell me I'm not the only one who's done this!

American butter isn't the same as UK butter, it has a lower fat content and is churned for less time. It probably doesn't keep as long at room temperature as butter made to European standards. I have two butter dishes so that there's always room temperature butter available and the only time I ever have problems is during heatwaves. Even then it's because of palatability; when the butter melts and re-solidifies then it changes consistency. It's not because it's gone off.

I have a 'chilly kitchen' (and live in North Yorkshire. I look forward to the two days a year when my butter is actually spreadable - the rest of the time it lives on the worksurface as a sullen hunk, from which I have to chisel usable slabs.

I have yet to die of a butter-related illness.

We have salted butter always in a dish, literally never lasts the full week here though!!
We also keep it in the coolest part of the kitchen too well away from the windows.

This reminds me of the teeny tiny butter dish that my Dad uses (because its generally just him using it) - its smaller than a credit card and I am fascinated by it every time I visit him!

I could of wrote this word for word exactly the same. I think we all have the same glass dish with a cow on it .

I dint think hunter goes off unless it gets very warm and even the it just turns into ghee.
However if you get crumbs / jam in it them it would go off I think.

The sole point of spreadable butter is that you can keep it in the fridge and not have a hard chunk or oily butter if your room temp doesn't suit normal butter in a butter dish.

I'd imagine spreadable butter would last less long and be more inclined to end up liquid in hot weather.

Do you know, I've used spreadable butter, at great expense, for years. I have to ask myself why I have not reverted back to the butter dish of my childhood as you're totally right... this is why spreadable was invented. I certainly remember being excited about the lack of faff when using spreadable in South Africa.

<logs onto amazon to see about a butter dish for the first time in 20+ years>

Depends how warm your kitchen is. Maybe for a few days a year spreadable butter has to go in the fridge otherwise it's too runny. The rest of the time it is "spreadable" from the fridge and properly spreadable from the tub left out.

I wonder how many millions of those are sold and who makes them. Don't they wonder about an apparently never ending demand for their product?

We used to have the glass cow dish but it broke. We now have a very similar one but it has a ridged design where the cow bit used to be.

Follow up question - which half do people put their butter on? We use it as a tray with a dome over, ie the butter goes on the flat bit. But I've seen other people put the butter in the deep bit and use the flat half as a lid in the more conventional sense.

And spreadable butter is much cheaper - £4.18 a week, two tubs of Sainsbury's own v double that or more when we were going through the equivalent in block butter a week.

If it’s salted butter you’re good for at least a couple of weeks (never lasts that long in our house!)

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/does-butter-go-bad#TOC_TITLE_HDR_3

Well, people like my grandparents had a larder built into the wall of their maisonette that had ventilation/bug free airflow, marble slabs and an absence of heating (unless they fired up the range at the other side of the large kitchen), so everything, including dairy products, were kept cool and fresh throughout summer.

Land O'Lakes is an American dairy producer anyway, and Allrecipes is a US cookery site.

So both can be safely ignored 😁

Butter stays in a butter dish on the side in this house unless it's super-hot weather.

Ours too. We go through at least a block a week.

We have the rock salt President butter (food from the gods) always on the work top, one dome (comes in it’s own dome shaped container) lasts about 2-3 weeks and has never gone off.

We always leave our butter out in a butter dish unless it is very warm and melting. It stays out for more than a week. I have no intention of changing. It's what generations have done with no discernible harm!

Tbh I thought only a few people would reply to this thread given that its such a boring topic...

But in actual fact I've learnt a great deal about different types of butter, butter dishes, and American food standards!

I have an expensive Lakeland stainless steel butter dish ( 2 actually so I always have one on the go while the other is being washed ) it supposedly keeps butter from going hard in winter and keeps it from going soft in summer.
However it doesn't work like that.🙄☹️
If kept in the fridge the butter is hard.
If kept outside the fridge in summer the butter melts to a liquid.
However most of the time it sits on the countertop and the butter is ok.
I only use half pounds of butter in it so the butter gets used up quickly.

My butter is always out (unless a scorching 30° plus heatwave).
Never had a problem. Get through a pack every ten days or so.

I keep butter in a butter dish, it never goes in the fridge. Butter is in the fridge until I need to refill the butter dish.

That's unlikely to be butter at that price. The only spreadable pure butter that I know about is more expensive (M&S own brand). There's also a Kerrygold softer, but I haven't seen that for ages. President is acceptable because the only additive is cream (and salt) but you're talking about 'spread' which is not what this thread is about.

It's butter plus British rapeseed oil. Fine by me. I don't want pure butter.

Lurpak is the best taste wise but I prefer to buy British.

Even if it did go rancid (which would take ages in the average British climate), it's not going to kill you, it'll just taste a bit less nice.

Our butter is always unsalted and it is still fine. Maybe in warmer weather I should switch to just taking part of the pack out at a time, especially now there are only two of us most of the time.

Mine stays out in the butter dish until it's finished which may be a few days or a few weeks.

It's never gone rancid yet.