On Food and Cooking

softens and becomes spreadable around
60ºF/15ºC, but doesn’t begin to melt until
85ºF/30ºC.
This workable consistency also means that
it’s easy to incorporate other ingredients into
the butter, which then carries their flavor and
color and helps apply them evenly to other
foods. Composed butters are masses of room-
temperature butter into which some flavoring
and/or coloring has been kneaded; these can
include herbs, spices, stock, a wine reduction,
cheese, and pounded seafood. The mixture can
then be spread on another food, or
refrigerated, sliced, and melted into a butter
sauce when put onto a hot meat or vegetable.
And whipped butter prepared by the cook is
butter lightened by the incorporation of some
air, and flavored with about half its volume of
stock, a puree, or some other liquid, which
becomes dispersed into the butter fat in small
droplets.