This falls into the “isn’t that a neat idea!” category.
It’s called a French butter keeper, and it allows you to keep butter on your table, soft enough for spreading, without it going rancid (or in my case, being eaten by two large dogs who loooooooooove to grab the butter when my back is turned).
You put the softened butter in the part on the right, the “butter bell.” You put an inch or so of salted water in the cup on the left. Then you turn the bell with the butter upside down and put it into the cup, so that the surface of the butter is underwater. This keeps oxygen away from it and keeps it fresh at room temperature.
Salting the water helps keep mold from forming. You have to change the water every three days, and you should keep the butter bell full or the water won’t seal off the surface of the butter. But isn’t this cool?
Photo from Lee Daniels Pottery, who make and sell them in four colors.
4 Comments
It’s nice looking, too.
That’s a very nice looking butter bell! I have one (not as handsome) and I haven’t used it yet because I’m always getting a stick of butter out of the freezer, and that’s no good for mashing into the bell.
Also? Having soft, room-temp butter around as a regular thing at my house is an invitation to vastly overindulge in my favorite thing: butter. With a little bread under it.
Actually, it works the other way here. I keep the butter in the fridge (or freezer), and DH will lop off chunks about 1/4″ thick to tile onto his bread. No doubt quite tasty, but there’s roughly 1000 calories of butter on a slice of toast that way. So if I can keep it room temperature, he’s more likely to spread a fairly thin layer.
The whole concept of the butter bell was completely new to me. I ran across it this morning when I was looking for something else entirely and was struck by the essential rightness of it. Almost Shaker simplicity. Beautiful.
Salt water has a very beneficial effect for terrestrial bacteria protection. Good idea, and a wonderful picture. Warmest regards, Doc.
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