Here is what we found out.
What is a butter board?
A butter board is built by spreading softened butter on a board alongside chunks of high-quality, toasted bread.
The butter can be plain or gussied up with flavours such as bacon-bourbon, lemon-basil, cinnamon-honey or apple.
It can be ornamented with jam, honey, edible flowers, salt, goat cheese, nuts, fruits, meat – whatever you fancy.
As with any food-on-a-board situation, presentation is as important as taste. The butter can be smeared, spread and moulded into creative designs.
Where did butter boards come from?
Brooklyn, New York-based cook Justine Doiron recently posted on Instagram claiming she wants to make butter boards “the next charcuterie board” in a reel that has had more than 10 million views and more than 186,000 likes.While Doiron wants the butter board to have its moment in the sun, she was not the original creator. In her viral video, she cites US chef Joshua McFadden as the idea’s originator.
McFadden took to his own Instagram to thank Doiron for sharing and to discuss the trend – which is something he has been doing for years.
“[I] used to do them for farm dinners where you’d have a bunch of different breads and spreads on the table,” he says. “It was an opportunity to present butter and add fun, seasonal ingredients to it that made the butter more than the sum of its parts.”
A butter board “should never taste the same”, he says – there are so many different ways to incorporate flavours and textures.
How to make a butter board
It seems simple, right? Put butter on a board. There are, however, a few steps that Doiron shared on her website with her butter board recipe to help you spread like a pro.
For example, butter should be softened but not melty, and the first step to making a butter board is to mix your butter in a bowl to help it soften – it should have a similar consistency to peanut butter. Then, toppings come in before serving. Doiron advises using a crusty bread like sourdough or whole wheat.
McFadden advises playing with texture – various salts or grains can be added to create different textures within the butter.
Taste testing the trend
In an effort to celebrate the new season, this writer flavoured butter with three autumn combinations: pumpkin spice, apple and maple. Each effort to flavour the butter took less than five minutes. It was easy to shape the softened butter into a pretty presentation.Finally, clean up. I used a wooden board that is hand-wash only. I thought it would be a massive mess to clean up but it was easy. The butter simply washed away, and I put anything unused into bowls to be popped in the fridge.
I also wondered about sharing a board like this in a communal setting – but I think those germ-related worries could be quelled with a butter knife.
A graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Morgan Hines covers food for USA TODAY
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