Saturday Morning Useless tip

Today is a good day for baking bread. It's cold, and spitting snow. And, I'm hungry.

Now, useless tip: Nothing is better on fresh baked bread than real butter. But, I hate how real butter is cold and hard to spread. And leaving it out on the counter for a few days gives it that off rancid taste that I despise. So a few months ago I succomb to buying the Land O Lakes spreadable butter. Mmm, tastes just like regular butter. Easier to spread. It cost an arm and leg though.

I look at the ingredients, butter, canola oil. Well, I have canola oil, and I have a stick of butter...I soften the butter, add 2 T of canola oil, blend well with a fork until the lumps disappear, scrape into the leftover spreadable butter container, and presto! Spreadable butter, just like the stuff from Land O Lakes. And it tastes like real butter, no off tastes! That's all I use now for toast and fresh bread.

Second tip (two for the price of one!): I use real butter when I bake. However I bake in spurts, and will go ages before I bake again. So my butter will go unused in the fridge for awhile. A few years ago, I opened up one of those sticks that had been in the fridge for awhile and spread it on my toast. Ugh! Gross rancid butter. That is one of the worst tastes ever. I began to store my butter in the freezer instead of the fridge. (I store the sticks in the freezer, not the spreadable butter. That stays in my fridge.) I buy my butter cheap by the pound, either at Sam's Club (4 lbs, all in sticks) or Walmart. When I need to use it, I'll soften it on the counter or in the microwave. I have stored butter in the freezer (for a few months at a time) until needed and never had a rancid stick again.

Frozen butter is great also if you are making a pastry such as pie crust, or biscuits. Simply use a box grater and grate the amount needed into your flour mixture. No need to cut into the flour, just mix until it resembles lumpy sand. Add your liquids and you're good to go.