A few weeks ago over at Sizzling Communications invited me to attend a butter tasting of Stirling Creamery at Lynn Crawford’s restaurant Ruby Watchco. Seeing as butter is my middle name I was definitely going to be in attendance.
An event based around butter is certainly a winner in my books. The team managed to incorporate butter into every aspect of the event. Not only was there butter to be spread on fresh baguettes but the rims of the cocktails served were butter-based and there were a number of dishes both savoury and sweet where butter was a main player. The folks at Stirling had four varieties on display for us to try: an 84% butterfat European-style, Goat Milk, Whey and a salted butter. Each butter was very distinct and so much better than the usual stuff I buy at the supermarket. The whey was my favourite as it had this almost sort of nutty quality about it. But don’t get me wrong, the goat’s milk was great and unique and the European-style was pure butter goodness.
At the end of the event we were gifted with A LOT of butter. Fresh off my my French baking class, I decided that I just HAD to use the European-style butter to make a batch of croissants.
Truth be told, croissant making was so much easier in class. Everything just seemed to hum along. Granted my at-home croissant making was SIGNIFICANTLY less traumatizing than my hot dog making experience, but the process did have it’s moments. I just didn’t plan the whole thing out properly. For example, the butter must be rolled out. I didn’t think this through. I set my butter on the cutting board and started rolling. Of course as I was rolling I realized I was really rolling it INTO the cutting board. Not ideal. I should’ve totally used parchment or something. Not a huge deal but was totally hilarious when I realized how silly I was. There were some other mishaps along the way including exploding dough in the fridge (you really have to wrap your dough in a gazillion layers before it goes into the fridge). But in the end it was nice to get a tray of these…
Of course that was far more croissants than I needed so I wrapped the rolled but not cooked croissants and put them in the freezer for future croissant goodness. My croissants turned out well. Not French baker good but still pretty darn good. And buttery. Man oh man were they buttery. And with really rich buttery taste… no complaints here. I do think I over-handled the dough because the croissants weren’t as flaky as I would’ve hoped but there’s always next time.
In Toronto you can find Stirling butters at places such as Whole Foods, Fiesta Farms, The Healthy Butcher and Olliffe Butcher Shop)
Thanks to the folks at Stirling Creamery for the butter stash and for a lovely event.
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You just said butter 15 times! I think I’m in a trance.
I really need to be invited to a butter tasting!!!
i love that you counted!
It looks like they turned out great. Making croissants is on my to-do list.
I probably wouldn’t have attempted without having taken a class first. It’s tricky stuff!
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