🧈 Butter

Butter is a dairy product made from cream that consists almost entirely of milk fat. Butter is a solid dairy product made up of roughly 80–82% milk fat; the rest is water (about 16%) and small amounts of protein, lactose and minerals. It is made by churning cream: vigorous agitation breaks the membranes of the fat globules, the fat clumps into butter grains and the liquid (buttermilk) separates. The grains are washed, pressed and worked into a smooth mass, sometimes salted.

Butter has been known since ancient times in many herding cultures. In a number of countries traditional butter is still churned from soured whole milk. Modern industry makes sweet cream butter from unfermented cream and cultured butter from soured cream, with varying fat and salt levels.

Butter differs from ghee in containing water and milk protein: ghee is almost pure fat, so it burns less and keeps longer. It differs from margarine in being made only from milk fat. Butter is spread on bread and used in baking, sauces and frying.