There was a time when a fancy dinner party meant hours or even days of preparations, including molding butter into special shapes to really wow one’s guests. We were beginning to think that this tradition had died out, but it seems to be making a comeback! Here’s how this tradition was started and how you can use these fancy shapes to impress at your next gathering.
The Types of Butter Molds
In the days before commercial food production farmers and their families would often sell their homemade butter at markets, pressing the butter into unique designs that made them stand out from other farmers. You could think of this as a type of branding. Because of this there are so many types of butter molds, most of them made from wood. The simplest designs function almost like a wax seal stamp, impressing the design on one side of the butter in small medallion shapes.
More elaborate molds include rectangular or square molds with the design on top. And the fanciest are the articulated molds that impress designs on 5 sides of a square or rectangle.
There are also molds that are more like figurines, with two halves that are separated to reveal a complex shape of butter.
The History of Shaped Butter
Another way to make a butter sculpture is to well, sculpt it. Molded and sculpted butter creations were known in Ancient China, made from yak butter. There are contests are state and county fair for the best (and biggest) butter sculptures, but sadly these won’t fit on your dinner table. The ambitious host or hostess may make their own sculptures in miniature for special occasions, but this is a time consuming task to say the least. There was a time when a party was a real feast for all the senses, especially if the host was well-to-do. With a staff of kitchen workers, a large household could afford to serve all kinds of molded and artistic creations at the table, in addition to the lavish silver candleholders, vases, and arrangements of flowers.
Butter molded into the shape of lambs is a tradition that came to the US with immigrants from European countries like Poland and Germany. The lamb has long been a symbol of rebirth and so this shape is used at Easter dinners. But, the popularity of these lively creations has spread to the other holidays and now you can buy butter turkeys for Thanksgiving and butter trees for Christmas.
Butter was once on the list of foods to abstain from during the Catholic period of Lent- the time leading up to Christmas. Special exceptions were made for those who could afford to purchase an “indulgence.” For a payment one could opt back in to eating fats during Lent, which included butter, because they had made an offering to the church and financially appeased the pope. The scheme was so popular that the money from these indulgences was used to build the spectacular Torre de Beurre on the Rouen Cathedral in France. Even in the old days butter was considered an integral part of meals and it’s no different today.
The Future of Butter Sculpture
Today there is a strong presence of artistic butter on social media, with expertly molded shapes being featured on Tik Tok. But, to truly experience these mini works of art, you have to eat them and thereby destroy them. Perhaps it is their temporary nature that appeals to lovers of art and history as well as to foodies around the globe.
Today there are a great many types of molds you can use to make your own fancy butter, most of them now made from silicone, where you can simply pour melted butter in and once chilled end up with perfectly-molded butter. But, for the Victorian-at-heart, the production of sterling silver butter curlers continues into the modern era, which press the butter into unique shapes (or curls).