For anyone who plans on baking during the holiday season — and if I had to guess, that would be a lot of us — this is an easy tip for taking your recipes up a notch, without any extra effort. Here’s why you should add Martha Stewart’s baking butter of choice to your grocery list this month.
What is Plugrà butter?
Plugrà is an American-made European-style butter that’s made by the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative. “European-style” butter is distinct because of its butterfat content. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) only requires that butter have a butterfat content of 80%, whereas the European Union standard is a butterfat content of 82%–90%.
While American-style butter can certainly have more than 80% butterfat, a majority of them hit that number exactly. So if you want something with more butterfat, you’ll want to opt for a European-style product like Plugrà, which is 82% butterfat.
Plugrà is also slow-churned, which means the cream is churned in smaller batches and at a slower pace. This contrasts with other large-scale industrial butter production practices, which might churn butter in significantly larger quantities, continuously, or at higher speeds.
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Why is Plugrà better for baking?
Many chefs prefer to use European-style butter for their baking because more butterfat also means more flavor. Butter is comprised of three components: fat, water, and milk solids. A higher percentage of butterfat translates to a richer, creamier flavor, which makes a big difference in baked goods that are all about the butter, like pie crust, biscuits, or shortbread.
That said, more fat equals less water, and the water content in butter is important for flaky doughs like pie crust — as the water evaporates in the oven, it creates pockets of steam and generates those flaky layers we love so much. Butter with a lower percentage of water also melts more quickly, and melted butter is not your friend when trying to craft a flaky pie crust. Consequently, you don’t want to steer too far in the direction of butterfat, because using something that’s 90% fat will likely yield a less flaky end result. Since Plugrà is 82% butterfat, it achieves a nice balance between being flavorful and still capable of producing a good flake.
The slow churning process for manufacturing Plugrà is also important. Michelle Palazzo, the director of pastry for the Frenchette Group and a brand partner for Plugrà explained to Food & Wine that the method “allows more time for better fat separation, leading the butter to develop a richer flavor and creamier texture. Also, slow-churned butter is typically made in smaller batches, minimizing the amount of air that is trapped in the butter, which happens more with rapid churning. This makes slow-churned butter even smoother and more pliable, which helps create superior results for precision baking. ”
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Where can you buy Plugrà?
Plugrà is a good quality butter, but it’s also a very accessible one. You can find it at nearly every major grocery store, including chains like Walmart, Kroger, Whole Foods, and H-E-B — and it’s typically sold at an affordable price.
For example, if I purchased eight ounces of unsalted Plugrà butter from Whole Foods in Brooklyn, New York, it would cost $4.79. In comparison, the same amount of another premium butter, Maple Hill Creamery’s Organic Grassfed Unsalted Butter (85% butterfat), would be $6.79, or eight ounces of Breakstone’s All-Natural Unsalted Butter (80% butterfat) would cost $4.49. Pricing will vary depending on where you shop, but Plugrà is generally more cost-efficient and can compete price-wise with inexpensive American-style brands.
Martha Stewart’s choice of butter is indeed an excellent suggestion for upgrading your holiday baking, and it’s an easy swap to make when you’re at the grocery store. But if you can’t locate Plugrà at your supermarket, that’s okay. Just look for another butter that has a high butterfat content. Both Kerrygold and Vital Farms sell American-made, European-style butters that have a fat content of 82% or higher, and won’t break the bank.
