On Food and Cooking

butter tastes different: the bacteria produce
both acids and aroma compounds, so the
butter is noticeably fuller in flavor. One
particular aroma compound, diacetyl, greatly
intensifies the basic butter flavor itself.
There are several different methods for
manufacturing cultured butter or something
like it. The most straightforward is to ferment
pasteurized cream with cream-culture bacteria
(p. 49) for 12 to 18 hours at cool room
temperature before churning. In the more
efficient method developed in the Netherlands
in the 1970s and also used in France, sweet
cream is churned into butter, and then the
bacterial cultures and preformed lactic acid
are added; flavor develops during cold
storage. Finally, the manufacturer can simply
add pure lactic acid and flavor compounds to
sweet cream butter. This is an artificially
flavored butter, not a cultured butter.
European-style butter, an American
emulation of French butter, is a cultured