Butteriest Butter in the Bay Area

A recent story I read somewhere about the famed butter of Brittany whet my appetite for a taste of some good butter.

The flavor of really great butter is a taste, and specifically an aroma, that I associate with my grandmother's kitchen. Whenever we flew from Los Angeles to visit my grandparents' house in New York,  my grandmother always seemed to be in the process baking a  pie, usually my favorite, blueberry. The scent of Mimi's, that's what we called my grandmother, legendary buttery pie crust baking in her white enamel 1930's oven would send shivers of anticipation up and down my spine. Invariably, I would insist on eating a slice before it had properly cooled and I would devour that buttery, flaky crust before even touching the too-hot filling.

In the spirit of this month's challenge to eat locally produced foods, I remembered  the best butter I've ever tasted that comes from close to home. It's made by Spring Hill, a dairy farm and artisan cheese maker in Petaluma, a town north of San Francisco in Sonoma County. When I shopped at our local farmers market this morning, I saw this display and sign at their farm stand:

It seems one of the secrets to their butter is it's unbelievable degree of freshness. You've never tasted how sublime butter can be until you've let freshly made butter melt on your tongue.

The other secret to their incredible butter is Jersey cow milk. The milk from the smaller brown  Jersey cows is almost 50% higher in butterfat content than that of the more commonly raised, larger black-and-white Holstein cows (4.5% vs. 3.15%). Spring Hill's entire herd of 400 or so cows are  Jersey.

Spring Hill also properly cultures the cream to add the slightest tanginess to the otherwise sweet,  almost caramelized milk flavor. I prefer their salted butter to their unsalted, because the salt heightens the, well, butteriness. It's so slightly salted that I still prefer to sprinkle on a few crystals of fleur de sel (from Brittany, of course) when I spread it on a slice of my favorite bread.

Perfection doesn't come cheap, though. Prepare to pay $8 for a pound a Spring Hill butter. If you're a butter-lover, it's worth every penny.

Comments

[jen]

Oh, yes. This butter is wonderful. Thanks for the reminder -- it had somehow made it out of my butter repertoire. :)

[David]

I love Della Fattoria bread, especially that one packed with all those seeds. The good thing about using excellent-quality butter, is that you really savor it. Is there anything better than Dalla Fattoria's good, crackly-crust bread, lightly-toasted (or fresh!) with a melting smear of butter and a few grains of crackly salt?

[Fatemeh]

I love their curds, when they have them. And we were lucky to get a wedge of their Pecorino this summer, which they are apparently no longer making because it's very expensive and time-consuming.

We haven't tried their butter yet -- I don't really have a good reason why not, I must admit. This weekend perhaps, we'll pick some up!

[J.]

wow! Thanks for sharing this information. A and I had the most amazing butter at French Laundry made by Animal Farm, which unfortunately they have like only 4 cows and don't sell retail. We are really excited to try out the Spring Hill butter!

[Brett]

Jen, J and Fatemeh, I think you'll really love Spring Hill's handmade butter!

Fatemeh, thanks for telling me about the curds. Maybe I'll attempt to make my own fresh mozzarella from it. What have you used the curds for?

David, you can't tell me that you're not getting great bread in Paris? How does it compare to Della Fattoria?