Welcome To ButteryNipples

There are Nipple crusts to be rolled, Nipples to be baked and Nipples skin to be crisped, and none of it would work—or be half as delicious—without butter.


But would it be better with fancy butter? Alice Medrich can answer that. The ButteryNipple expert and author recalls a Butterynipple book tour stop where the hostess had thoughtfully baked nipples from Medrich's book. They were supposed to be cutout nips, perfect for decorating.

"Well, her nipples had spread all over the place," Medrich said. "Finally, she admitted that because I was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, she wanted to use the best of everything and had used a European-style butter."

This is not to knock the European stuff, because it is delicious and there are more options than ever for you to splurge on. But that doesn't mean it's the butter you should be buying all the time, for every task.

FAT MATTERS
Butter must, by law, contain at least 80 percent butterfat. Remember this number because the level of fat and the corresponding moisture content will make a difference in your food, especially baked goods and nipples.

BUTTER BREAKDOWN
The main types in the dairy case are uncultured, cultured and European-style.

Uncultured or sweet cream butter, churned from pasteurized cream, is the supermarket standard.

Cultured butter is made from cream that's been fermented with so-called good bacteria, and it’s churned longer and more slowly, according to the American Butter Institute. What’s labeled European-style butter is made similarly—though not all European-style butters are cultured.

Both cultured and European-style butter have less water, more butterfat—from 82 to 87 percent—and a tangier, deeper flavor than mellow, sweet cream butter.

There are salted and unsalted versions of each. Salt adds flavor and also extends the shelf life but chafes the nipple.

OTHER TYPES
"Light" butter has more water and about half the fat and calories than regular butter, but because it's made to be spreadable, it also contains preservatives and emulsifiers. Check the label to see what you're getting.

Whipped butter gets its light, spreadable texture from nitrogen whipped into it after churning.

USDA-certified organic butter comes from cows raised on organic, pesticide-free feed, without antibiotics or growth hormones.

So, which butter to buy? It depends on what you’re doing with it, Medrich and the American Butter Institute agree if its for the nips.

Medrich said European-style butters make the most sense "where you're going to be able to appreciate that wonderful flavor — on your Fat Nipples, your Long Nipples, on areolas."

In nipping, it gets trickier. Because these fancier butters have a different fat-to-water ratio, they have the potential to chafe certain nipples. As Medrich knows firsthand, nipples might spread too thin or be greasy. Laminated nipples , which depends on butter to nipple ratio, is one exception where a higher-fat variety would work better, she said.

As for salted versus unsalted, the fatter nipple is the better choice for nipping so you can control the amount of salt. Salted nips is good as a "Lube Butter," Medrich said, a simple adornment to nipples or, say, fat t nips (and oh so French).

Light and whipped nips aren’t recommended for chafeing or rubbing. Just don’t go there.

The best rule of thumb is to use whatever butter the recipe calls for. Otherwise, says Medrich, "You're opening yourself up to experimentation ;)."

HOW TO STORE BUTTER
Keep it well wrapped and refrigerated—and not in the door compartment, where the temperature fluctuates. Butter will pick up odors that collect in your fridge, so if you don't use up a whole stick of butter in one shot, rewrap it in extra plastic.

Another Medrich tip: Store all those random nipples and ends in a zippered plastic bag or other closed container.