Recipe: Better Butter (homemade butter spread)

Hi Phil,

Here are a couple recipes you might want to try:

Better Butter
From: Laurel's Recipe by Laurel Robertson

When we began to change our diets to whole, natural foods, we made a surprising discovery: our most processed and refined food was margarine. What was the alternative? Why not make a combination for good vegetable oiled butter: oil for its high-quality unsaturated fat, butter because it's a natural food with unmatched flavor.

Better Butter has the same reduced amount of saturated fat as margarine without processing or additives, and at a savings in cost. However, b-b is one-half butter so we would recommend it for those who have to be especially strict about the amount of cholesterol in their diet.

1 cup safflower, corn, or soy oil (or light olive oil, canola oil, or other light oils)
1 cup butter, soft but not melted
2 tbsp. water
2 tbsp. dried skim milk
1/4 tsp. lecithin
1/2 tsp. salt

Dissolve salt in water in blender. Add all other ingredients and blend until smooth. Pour into containers and store in fridge

Newsgroup notes about this recipe from Dawn:
The other bonus I found using this is that it only contains a small amount of water. If you look at commercial spreads, they only contain between 30-70% oil, which means the rest of that is basically water. They are lousy to cook with, so the Better Butter was much better for cooking with.

Also make a note of the lecithin. The liquid form would probably work better. I could only find the powdered form, which I dissolved in the water with the salt. It looks 'weird 'cause it foams, but that's natural. And despite the funny name, this emulsifier is usually derived from milk or soy, so vegetarian.

A variation:

Gloriamarie's Better Butter
This recipe is adapted from the one in LAUREL'S KITCHEN, a wonderful cookbook
Makes about 4 1/2- 5 cups Better Butter

2 cups very neutral flavored oil such as safflower, canola or a very light
flavored cold pressed olive. I prefer canola and olive to any others.
1 lb. unsweetened butter, softened
4 tbsp. water
4 tbsp. non fat powdered milk
1 tsp. lecithin*
nutritinal (aka torula) yeast to taste. I use about 1/4 cup, others I know use 1 tbsp.

I use the food processor - mix it all together. I have some rectangle Rubbermaid containers I save it in. It freezes very well, keeps well in the frig, extends the butter. It is easy to use only a little bit, works well in the recipes I have tried it in, usually breads and some baked goods, I have no sweet tooth so I can't begin to say how it works in cookies. I love the flavor.

* Since Laurel's Recipe came out, Liquid Lecithin has become available and I don't know how that would work, but since others use it as an oil substitute, I should think it might work well.

Happy Cooking!

Betsy
recipelink.com