A Butter Flight Is The Unique Way To Experiment With Your Bread Course

Bread and butter have graced dinner tables together for hundreds of years as a simple, inexpensive way to round out meals and keep bellies full. Even after bread and butter were no longer a universal staple of the human diet, this popular pairing endured. In fact, we love bread and butter together so much that they've become part of several food trends — the latest being butter flights.

As the name suggests, butter flights include several different varieties of butter paired with a few different kinds of bread. This allows you to explore a wide variety of different flavor and texture combinations. For instance, you might use allium flowers to make a garlicky compound butter to serve with herbed focaccia, or create chocolate and fruit-forward butters to go with homemade cinnamon raisin bread. Whether you go sweet or savory, be sure to choose flavors that complement each other so your butter flight feels cohesive. 

Butter flights are a creative and thoughtful way to approach appetizers for brunch or a dinner party. They might also be the perfect accompaniment to a home-based wine tasting, or a sophisticated-yet-casual addition to a charcuterie spread. Many grocery stores now sell flavored butters, but it's also fairly easy to make your own compound butter at home for custom flavors. You'll also want to make sure you have enough small containers to hold all the flavors you plan to serve, along with a big cutting board to hold various breads.

Building your own butter flight at home can be as simple or as complex as you have the time and budget for. No matter how many types of butter and bread you offer, it's most important to decide on a flavor profile first. This helps narrow down which seasonings you need for your butter, and may also help you choose your breads.

To choose a flavor profile, you might focus on a type of cuisine, such as Italian, and learn how to use just the right amount of basil, oregano, and rosemary in your butters to make them sing. Or, you could create a dessert butter flight featuring flavors like fresh vanilla beans, brown sugar and cinnamon, or honey with orange zest. This also helps in choosing breads, as savory butters might go better with hearty whole grain, while sweet ones could complement a wide variety of tasty quick breads.

When prepping your butter flight, it's best to blend compound butters and slice up breads the night before. Store everything in airtight containers in the refrigerator. The next day, get the bread out about an hour before your event so it can come to room temperature. Get the butter out about 20 minutes before guests arrive to ensure it's soft but not melted. Regarding presentation, you can serve your butters on separate boards, in decorative bowls, or even use butter molds to impress guests with a uniquely beautiful display.