Modification of Butter to Improve Low Temperature Spreadability

Abstract

Lowering milkfat content by increasing moisture content to 32% produced 30 and 20% improvement in spreadability of butter after one and 30 ds respectively. The addition of 4% sodium casemate or 4% buttermilk solids in conjunction with a similarly high moisture content made no improvement over the butter containing high moisture alone. Various emulsifiers at the 1% level (fat basis) produced softer butter initially but failed to stop setting or progressive hardening with time at 4.4C. Thus, after 30 days’ storage, the beneficial effects of these additives had largely disappeared. Addition of 30% sunflower seed oil to summer milkfat produced a modified butter which could be satisfactorily spread on bread immediately from the refrigerator (4.4C-10C). However, this level of oil added to winter fat resulted in some difficulty in spreading the product at the latter temperature range.