Definition: Churned butter

Fresh, salted butter, churned in the traditional way, is still the best thing to spread on your toast. We know one of the best places to find authentic artisanal churned butter. It is made by master cheesemaker and artisan butter maker Jean-Yves Bordier in Saint-Malo:

For him, achieving the required quality of butter depends on a subtle balance between the breed of cow producing the milk – organic Normandes and Holsteins, fed without silage – the terroir, the skill of the butter maker and the season.

His production process involves:

Salting: we salt our butter with a fine salt measuring 60 microns. Why? The Saint-Malo region has not traditionally used salt marshes, but rather salt ovens that produce fine crystals with a smaller grain size than the fleur de sel from Guérande or Noirmoutier. We are keen to preserve the character of this salting method, which is unique to our terroir. To salt the butter, we use very fine sea salt, the same type that was once obtained in Saint-Malo by boiling seawater (bouilleur d'eau), as there were no salt marshes.

Mixing: a technique dating back to the late 19th century was used to blend and process butters from different origins. Used until the 1950s and 1960s in France, this process was not considered particularly noble. Jean-Yves Bordier uses it to give the butter real added value.
The churned butter arrives at the workshop in 50 kg blocks. Mixing removes the water from the butter to concentrate all its flavours.
By selecting high-quality churned butter made in Brittany, this process of working the butter in teak mixers gives it a silky texture and remarkable spreadability. Modern manufacturing processes crush the fat molecules, whereas simple traditional mixing produces a very different texture. The skill of the butter maker-mixer is crucial.

The paddles: the butter is still shaped by hand, using boxwood paddles, just as it was in the early 1900s. This method is called "beating the butter", which causes salt water tears to form on the surface of the butter, just like our great-grandmothers used to make!
This method is still used today. It respects the ecosystem and preserves manual labour; restoration and perpetuation are the watchwords, not folklore or other popular traditions established for economic reasons.
Bordier churned butter is sure to live up to your gourmet expectations.
At Bordier, you will hear: "When I knead my butter and the salt penetrates, I hear my butter singing. When our cream makers beat the butter, we say it's crying!"
Churned butter is available in the following varieties: unsalted, lightly salted (less than 3% salt), salted (more than 3%), seaweed (very subtle thanks to the different intensities of Porphyre, Dulse and Sea Lettuce, which give it a beautiful colour), and lightly salted and smoked (when the strong, intoxicating aromas of smoked salt can enhance the creaminess of the butter).

There is only one country in the world where butter has its own religious ceremony. Mine. Every year, on the first Sunday after Pentecost, in Spézet, in the centre of Finistère, we celebrate its pardon. Hymns and procession at Notre-Dame-de-Krann, offering to the Virgin Mary a gargantuan lump sculpted by women's hands. These pious parishioners are probably unaware that they are perpetuating a pagan rite. The Celts already used butter in their ceremonies, and their women made offerings to the Mother Goddess to grant them fertility. Not so long ago, a pot of butter was placed in the room of a dying person and then buried at the bottom of the garden after the funeral. The butter was supposed to capture all the miasmas and thus purify the air.

Butter is a wonderful taste from my childhood. It is essential, and anyone who doesn't enjoy buttered bread with oysters, spider crabs, prawns or cold leg of lamb is missing out on some of life's simple pleasures. As for Paris-Brest, it's simple: I still can't resist it.
I couldn't imagine cooking without butter. But you still need to know what kind of butter you're talking about. Real butter is made from raw, churned, fresh milk, as it used to be prepared on all farms. Its quality and production were a measure of the farmers' wealth, as well as giving women a certain economic independence.

The same attention is paid to the 200 varieties of cheese, chosen and selected from the best artisans and matured each year. Maturing is the specific word that will create the taste and texture and transform the piece of cheese into a real treat for the palate.

The origin of the milk and the season are two factors that determine the quality of butter. The kneading time also varies according to the season: 25 minutes in winter, compared to only 15 minutes in summer. In the latter season, the butter will remain softer.

Churned, salted on the fly and kneaded by hand, Bordier butter is then shaped using boxwood paddles, hence the expression "taper le beurre" (to tap the butter), either to make blocks or to create portioned butters for top chefs, each with their own unique shape - a bespoke butter.

With its authenticity and simplicity, churned butter brings the charm of yesteryear and the lightness required today to the kitchen.
Used intelligently, it is the secret to impalpable juices, supple sauces and light desserts (puff pastry).
A fixative and flavour enhancer, it coats, caresses, smooths and makes dishes shine. Raw, melted or cooked, it lends itself to all kinds of creations.

Jean-Yves Bordier - 02 99 40 88 79 - 9, rue de l'Orme, Saint-Malo - La Fromagée 1;
Jean-Yves Bordier - +33 (0)2 99 04 11 11 - 2, rue Julien Neveu - Noyal-sur-Vilaine - La Fromagée 2;
Jean Yves Bordier - 02 23 18 09 97 - 6 av. Révérend Père-Umbricht, Courtoisville, Saint-Malo - La Fromagée 3, where most of our photos were taken in 2007.

"A few words to spread around...
- Counting for butter
- To put butter in the spinach
- Wanting to have your cake and eat it too - Wanting everything, without giving anything in return. Wanting to win on all fronts.
- To have a black eye
- Spread semi-salted butter on your eye
- To promise more butter than bread
- Make your own butter
- Not having invented the butter knife
- No more than stick butter
- The toast always falls on the buttered side
- And your sister, does she churn butter?
- To be buttered up, meaning completely drunk - When my mates arrived at my place for New Year's Eve, they were already completely buttered up! Syn. plastered.
- To have butter on your head - To have committed several crimes, to have a guilty conscience, to be charged with crimes, to be a major criminal.
- Butter, in the sense of money, cash; profit, gain, wealth.
This means that while you sleep, I'll be quietly going about my business; don't worry, my children, we'll get our butter! There's plenty, come on!
- Without butter: a high-ranking rag-and-bone man.
- To be rolling in butter: to be rich.
- Faire le beurre: technique for stealing. They teach them how to do the mouchoir, the pacotille, the beurre. These shameful terms are the alphabet of thieves' slang.
- To have the butter plate: Power understood as a place of available wealth; source of profits; to have money at one's disposal; to be well-off, to have a large share of luck, to take everything for oneself (often with political and pamphleteering themes).
- Figurant au beurre: paid extra (in the theatre).
- Punaise dans le beurre: accident.
- Batteur de beurre: stockbroker.
-Y aller de son beurre: to spend without counting.
- He didn't invent the butter knife: fool, idiot, simpleton, not very intelligent, not very clever. He was one of those big, good-natured boys who you immediately say didn't invent gunpowder or the butter knife.
- At the price of butter! : expensive, too expensive.
- Quarter of butter: gold ingot.
- To butter up the little one: to console.

When you open the PDF below, you will be captivated by beautiful photos that showcase the talent of artisan butter maker Jean-Yves Bordier.