The classic French butter dish:
5 good reasons why it is absolutely indispensable in your kitchen.
1) The butter dish protects your butter against the light and the ambient temperature. Moreover, it allows you to always enjoy an easily smearable butter. From now on, no more spreadable butter from a plastic tub, but a good old organic farm butter of which you not only know how it tastes, but also where it precisely comes from.
2) No more hard and unsmearable butter, unhandy paper packaging, or greasy hands. From now on, your butter will always be creamy and easily smearable!
3) Furthermore, this butter dish is also economic, as you will finally be able to use exact the amount of butter you need, thus avoiding the embarrassed silence of your doctor when he discovers your cholesterol level..
4) Everywhere! This butter dish can be used in every place where there is no fridge available. At the camping, in your hotel room, during a picknick...
5) And, last but not least, it is also a decorative object that will surely suprise your guests during a dinner or a cheese party.
Where does this butter dish precisely come from?
The French butter dish, also called "le Beurrier breton" or "cloche à eau", was invented in the 18th century, long time before the fridge came into our lives. It is said that it first appeared near Quimper, in the French region of Brittany.
How do you use it?
The French butter dish consists of two distinct parts, called "le beurrier" and "la cloche".
1. In the lower part, "le beurrier", you have to put the butter. Herefore, you can simply push it inside, or you can proceed as showed in the demonstration video above. While doing so, you have to make sure that there is no space for air left in the butter.
2. Fill the upper part, "la cloche", to the edge with water. Next you have to put the "beurrier" upside down into the "cloche", preferably above a sink or a towel in order to easily drain the excess water.
3. Like this, you can keep your butter fresh during minimum 1 month - nevertheless, you have to change the water every 2 or 3 days.
4. And as your deliciously creamy butter inevitably decreases, you have to make sure that the holes of the butter dish stay free, so the water can surely stay in contact with the butter to keep it fresh.
Tip: if your tap water has a too acidic pH-value, you might better use bottle water (from glass bottles, of course!)