I like to stock up on butter when it is on sale. I am picky on my butter. I have found that Walmart brand and other cheap brands of butter don’t work as well in baking. I think they taste fine and we use it on things like toast, but I do not to bake with it. I am not sure why it doesn’t work as well, but it doesn’t.
In my tried and true recipes, like my cookies, I can tell a difference with cheap butter. I like the butter my Sam’s Club sells and it is a good price. I also stock up on good butter when it is on sale and I freeze it.
Butter was on sale quite a bit around Easter. My Christmas sale supply was running low, so I decided to buy quite a bit of it.
I recently opened one of the packages of butter that I bought on sale. This is what I found.
All these little cubes. Instead of 4 normal, 1/2 cup sticks of butter, I got 8 small, 1/4 cup sticks of butter. I think this is wasteful. It just gives you extra packaging for the same amount of product. Can’t people cut the cubes up as needed. That is what most of us do.
To be fair when my mom saw my cute little sticks of butter, she liked the idea. She said it would work great for her since she just cooks for my dad and her. I can see her point, but I still like my regular normal sticks of butter.
Has anyone else seen these? What do you think? Should they stick to regular 1/2 cup sticks or do you like the idea of 1/4 cup small sticks?
Yes I noticed that the Land o Lakes butter I bought on sale was pkged up like this, I’m not sure how I feel aout this yet.
I have been buying a certain kind of butter for a while and I recently switched to something different that was on sale. And I was astonished at the tiny sticks of butter! I don’t think I really care what size it comes but I do agree about the wasteful bit.
And I never thought about the cheap butter making my cookies and cakes taste different, that is an interesting thought.
Everywhere I’ve lived we’ve had normal 1/2 cup sticks. However, I did have to get used to a different shape when we moved from Texas to Utah this past summer. All the butter in the grocery stores here are in 1/2 cup sticks – but they’re short and squatty – not long and thin like I was used to. I could tell just by looking before where 1 tablespoon was on a stick. The shape is a little more narrow here though because the stick is so much fatter.
Lynn, it is funny you say that. I grew up in OR and the butter sticks are short and fat. When I came to OK I thought the long skinny ones were funny. It is all what we are used to.
I don’t even buy the 1/2 cup sticks. I buy butter in one pound blocks. 1/4 cup sticks would throw me for sure.
the butter here in singapore is short and stumpy in a weird shape, too!
I agree that it is just wasteful.
Its pretty much the same amount of wrapper. I don’t really see how it is so much of a waste.
I think its great because my sticks are always falling out of the fridge and collecting crumbs on the end.
I agree with you Lynn…I like the 1/2 cup sticks much better.
And…I do buy the cheap butter…the pricier butter does taste a little different. But…I just used the cheap butter to make a lemon buttermilk sheet cake, and it tasted great…maybe because I used just a tad more salt in the batter?
I’ve seen these and bought them too, only because they were cheaper than the regular normal size. While I do think it’s a ridiculous idea, I’ll still buy them if they’re cheaper (We really like Land O Lakes buter) for the exact same amount of butter!
Hi Lynn,
I just found your blog and I found your comments about butter interesting. In Australia butter comes in 500g and 250 g that is about a pound and a half a pound. We always cut it up and weigh out what we want. And the paper is big enough to use to grease the pan. It seems so crazy to over package everything. For years I could use American baking recipes because I did’t know what was meant by a stick of butter….The internet sure is an amazing tool for finding things out.
I also loved your ideas abot frozen meals. i think I’ll go and do some cooking today and fill my freezer.
Cheers Erica
I just got back from Grocery outlet where they had Challenge butter in a 1lb. wrapper, no box. I will try it out and see how I like it. Also, THANK YOU!!! I thought my Christmas baking tasted funny this year (I used Walmart butter) and I ruined two things that I never have had problems cooking before. I was worried I was losing it! :O)
I dislike the little bars, too.
Just now, after baking chocolate chips cookies for over forty years, after baking a half batch, they’re not cookies, but rather carmel-like smears on the cookie sheet, leaving quite a mess in the oven, etc. I can’t imagine what went wrong except the butter is different – even though it is labeled Land o Lakes.