Quality of butter?

[HarrySnotter]

I asked about the flour so now I'm asking about the butter! I've been using unsalted butter to make biscuits with and they've been coming out really nice. (Have bought some Stork to try in sponges but that's a whole other issue apparently). Had a shopping delivery the other day and they have substituted the butter I normally buy (Kerrygold) with the Tesco Everyday Value one. Fine, much cheaper I thought but the biscuits I made taste 'OK' but I think they're a bit greasy tasting. Could this be the quality of the butter or that I've just made crap biscuits this time?

I think depending on the type of biscuit it's likely to be the butter, most biscuits are high in fat, so like any other main ingredient their quality will affect their taste (IMO)

I use a mixture for cake (depending on the cake) of good butter and stork but for bis units I'm a sucker for lurpak, my grandmother used it and although its not the best it gives me that warm memory thing when I eat them

Not sure where bis units came from - Biscuits obviously ha ha

Ah thank you Chunky I suspected it might be. They still tasted nice but just not quite there and I had the feeling my arteries were hardening with every bite! :)

Ha ha yes I think it always pays to invest when you're doing something like that!

But surely butter is butter. How can a branded unsalted butter be any different from a value butter given that there is only one ingredient in butter: butter?

Yes, I always wonder about that. But, good quality butter tastes soooo much nicer, no?

Butter is definitely not butter, but I have found for general cake baking (where butter is in the background), any butter is fine, as long as it is fresh. For recipes where butter is prominent (butter breads, puff pastry, croissants, brioche), I only use the best butter on hand. Really good butter is a thing of beauty - deeper in colour and richer in flavour due to the better diet of the cow and also a higher percentage of butterfat.

Value butters are a pale cousin of the good stuff. Even amongst good butters I find there is a difference. The good French ones are paler and sweeter than the fantastic English ones (apologies, I have not tried the excellent Irish ones as they don't seem to be stocked near me). The good English ones are deeper in flavour - almost cheese like. I've even had a butter made from clotted cream which was out-of-this-world rich. I prefer to bake with the French butters, and cook with and eat the English ones.

HarrySnotter, it sounds like the butter you were given was probably old, and not anything you did wrong.

When I'm in the UK I always use value butters, unless I can get to Waitrose, as Waitrose do a double sized portion (500g) which works out cheaper than 2 normal portions (250g) of value butter

I made a sponge cake recently with farmhouse butter made with whey traditional farmhouse (Sainsbos £1.50 sold at the cheese counter) and my sponge was so much tastier, beautiful colour and light so there was better results. It was also salted and that doesnt concern me as the salt I think improves flavour.

I do buy the value butter but as long as its british I'm ok with that. If I was making something very special then I would use the richer posher butters that Waitrose sell.

Saying butter is butter is like saying a chicken is a chicken which just proves to me how out of touch we are to farming and mass production.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter