If you’ve been to our farm, you know that we’re not just an ice cream maker. We’re a real working dairy, and while we make some of the best ice cream and milk in the world, we don’t spend as much of our time talking about the other outstanding dairy products we make. Now is a great time to celebrate dairy’s savory star – butter.
Here are 10 things you can’t make – and enjoy – without butter.
1. Popovers
Popovers, the fancier cousin to the humble pancake, are a buttery, eggy way to start the day. These light and fluffy treats are not only a delight because of their form, but also because their ingredients are so readily available – flour, eggs, salt and butter. While dedicated popover pans do exist, they can just as easily be made in a regular muffin tin. The key is whipping the eggs to a frothy lightness. Air bubbles are key to making the rolls “pop over” the sides of the tin.
Popover recipes:
How to Make Popovers – The Kitchn
Popovers with Strawberry Butter – Just One Cookbook
Jeff’s Incredible Popovers – Edible Tulsa
2. Cookies
Sugar cookies, butter cookies, classic chocolate chip – cookie recipes always seem to start with “cream together butter and sugar”. These two ingredients are critical to making traditional (and delicious) cookies. Why do we cream the butter and sugar together? It helps incorporate the sugar evenly and the air that gets mixed in makes your cookies less dense.
Sugar cookie recipes:
Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe – Oklahoma City Moms Blog
Sugar Cookies – Cookin’ Cowgirl
The Basics of Sugar Cookies – Bee in our Bonnet
3. Shrimp Scampi
Butter is one of the defining flavors of a good shrimp (or chicken!) scampi. Paired with garlic and lemon, the buttery shrimp is at once rich and light, savory and just a bit sweet. Easy to make, scampi is a quick meal that can be served over pasta or rice, or eaten on its own.
Shrimp scampi recipes:
The Basics of Shrimp Scampi – ChowHound
16-Minute Meal: Shrimp Scampi – The Pioneer Woman
Brown Butter Garlic Shrimp – Add a Pinch
4. Cinnamon Rolls
Cinnamon rolls come with a double dose of butter – butter in the dough, and butter in the glaze. These sugary, cinnamon-y delights are a staple of southern breakfasts.Cinnamon roll recipes:
Skillet Cinnamon Rolls – Edible Tulsa
Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls – Modern Pilgrim
5. Pie
Pie dough is simple on its face – combine four ingredients (flour, salt, water, and your choice of fat) and bake. Bakers disagree, though, on which fat is best for pie crusts. Lard, shortening, and oil all join butter on the short list of available fats. Butter, though, reigns supreme for flaky, flavorful crusts. Other fats can give you flaky, but none can deliver the flavor of butter.
The crust isn’t the only place butter shines though. Custard-based pies often include butter as a rich complement to their egg-heavy insides.
Pie recipes:
Pecan Pie Recipe – Edible Oklahoma City
Chocolate Pecan Pie Recipe – David Lebovitz
Buttermilk Pie Recipe – Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures
Buttermilk Pie – Homesick Texan
6. Croissants
Like piecrusts, the secret to flaky, delicious croissants is incorporating layers of butter in the dough. This gives croissants both their signature flake and their buttery flavor.
Croissant Recipes:
Croissants – Laura in the Kitchen
Homemade Croissants – The Baker Chick
7. Roux
Roux forms the basis of three of the classical “mother sauces” of French cooking, which is a fancy way of saying a lot of the sauces we like to eat get their start with this mix of flour and butter cooked together. In the Midwest, roux plays an important role in the making of cream gravy, perfect for pouring over biscuits or chicken fried steak (the state meal of Oklahoma).
Roux Recipes:
Herbed Baked Chicken with Cream Gravy – Restless Chipotle
Restaurant Style Southern White Gravy Recipe – Uncle Jerry’s Kitchen
Creamed Spinach – The Pioneer Woman
8. Hollandaise Sauce
Speaking of sauces, breakfasts across the country would be incomplete without the butter-laden Hollandaise sauce that makes Eggs Benedict what it is. Hollandaise is a mixture of egg yolks and butter, creamy and tart from the inclusion of lemon juice. It’s delicious on Eggs Benedict, but equally delightful on steamed vegetables. Sauce Béarnaise, a common sauce added to steaks, is derived from Hollandaise.
Hollandaise sauce recipes:
Baked Eggs Napoleon With Hollandaise Sauce – Simply Gloria
Mustard Greens and Hollandaise Stack – The Meaning of Pie
9. Toffee
Toffee, butter toffee, butter crunch. By any name, this sweet treat is the perfect blend of savory butter and sweet sugar.
Toffee Recipes:
Salted Dark Chocolate Almond Toffee – Sally’s Baking Addiction
Toffee Butter Icebox Cookies – Mom on Time Out
10. Roasted chicken
Basting chicken with butter, or rubbing it with butter and herbs before roasting, yields a crispy skin full of flavor. Thoroughly drying the skin before adding the butter will help the chicken brown.
Roasted chicken recipes:
Butter Roasted Chicken – Never Enough Thyme
Perfect One Hour Whole Roasted Chicken – Little Spice Jar
Honey Orange Roasted Chicken – A Spicy Perspective
It appears everything is better with butter, and great butter comes from great milk produced by cows with a clean diet. In short, great butter comes from Braum’s. You can stop by your local Braum’s Fresh Market and grab a pound today to start making all these delicious, buttery treats.
Popovers courtesy normanack | CC BY
