an amazing avant-garde restaurant, Atelier (http://www.atelierrestaurant.ca/) in ottawa has been using powdered butter for their bread since they opened. finding it in the store, however, is new to me.

I would totally want to try it, but I agree. This falls under things like powdered milk (not real that different) but edible but not quite right tasting.

In the south, we always stock our pantry with canned goods (meat, veggies etc) bottled water and things like that in case of a hurricane. But I can say with certainty, in the even a massive hurricane hits again or the apocalypse rolls around, I think getting my hands on some butter would be the last of my concerns :)

Having endured a childhood of powdered milk, instant mashed potato flakes and powdered eggs, I'll pass on this!

....I guess I'm the only dissenting "I may try this," then.

The "sprinkling it on popcorn" just sounded too good.

mixing this with water sounds... not easy
(fat + water?).

I see a creative potential here in using liquids other than water to hydrate this.

Powdered dairy = oxidized cholesterol. No thank you.

Mmmm...that would go so well with Powdered Toast.

I'm surprised at all the negative comments! The butter powder is made from *non-fat* milk-solids (which solves the issue of mixing fat with water) and has a shelf life of 5 years (which solves the issue of oxidized cholesterol.)

If you compare it to regular butter, it's actually slightly less in fat...which is sort of beside the point since (at least in my home) this would be considered a luxury "emergency preparedeness" item.

Even if having butter is not at the top of your list in case of disaster, it could be a small comfort when you are hand cranking wheat berries to make dry, dense bread for your family dinner...(a bit dramatic I realize.) All in all, I think this is an awesome post! I will be getting something for my "just in case" pantry.

Thanks!

I'm just guessing here, but I assume that Atelier's powdered butter is made using tapioca maltodextrin, which a lot of the "avant-garde" restaurants are using to make powders.

As far as stocking up goes? I'll just use my regular butter. I don't think that if I do survive some disaster, I'll be eating my mud pies and such thinking that it all "just needs some powdered butter."

I'd think this would be really great for camping, or for people who have tiny refrigerators and don't want to waste any of that space on butter. It also sounds like a terrific just-in-case supply. I might not want butter on my post-disaster mud pies, but if the power's out and I can use the camp stove but not the fridge (as happened with Florida relatives after a couple of hurricanes), I'd be glad of this option.

If I were going camping I'd just bring some margarine packets or a small tub of margarine from home. As for emergency preparedness, butter isn't really on my list of must haves.

I cook and bake more with oil than butter, so I can't imagine having an emergency stash of it. But I'd like to try it, just for curiosity's sake!

If someone doesn't want to waste any of their small fridge space on butter, then just... Don't put butter in the fridge! This is just like the eggs-in-the-fridge thing. I feel like facepalming whenever I hear someone declare that you *must* at all times keep these things refrigerated.

This seems like an adventure into unnecessary-but-intriguing food replacements, interesting for a minute, until you realise it's just gimmicky and pointless.

This is amazing. I'm not sure how much this would come into use for everyday cooking but I would totally try it!

As a child, we had to go 12 days without electricity during a hurricane. My sister and I were desperate for some creature comforts food-wise and my mom gave us butter-flavored crisco on plain bread. I'm sure this would have been a much welcome improvement!!

my god, rosiegreenie, finally someone who sounds just as tired as i am of food paranoia. thank you. how did our pre-refrigeration ancestors ever survive? and yet they did...withour food recalls, to boot.

Rosiegreen and The Polish Chick. I lived in Africa growing up and our eggs were always out at room temperature. I lived there 10 years, ate eggs almost every day and my family and I never once got sick or even found a bad egg.

I almost never use butter in cooking or baking, only margarine and oil, but once in a while, I do need a little 'real' butter. Usually, in these cases, I use butter that I cut up and froze in little cubes. This sounds like a good alternative.

I don't know if I'd try this, and I can't imagine ever going through an entire tub of that stuff, but I have to compliment the branding of the product! The labeling over at Thrive is beautiful.

think of it this way: its winter, its snowing, its toronto/montreal...you decide to bake something yummy cuz its cold and dark outside and you start mixing...and then you realize, no one bought butter last time at the supermarket and there isn't enough...now you really really want those cookies/roll/etc because you can't have it....no one wants to leave the house in the snowstorm...that's when this is a good idea...

does anyone think this has happened to me? lol

I do a lot of backcountry travel and can see this being awesome. Real butter does not last for a fridge-less week. But to have some would be a total treat.
I wonder how it bakes? Anybody know?
We often like to make mixes that just need water added then cook them in a dutch oven. This would open up a lot of recipes!
I, personally, am looking forward to having this on hand!

@ RosieGreenie, butter doesn't survive a Tucson summer without the fridge. Believe me, I tried because i hate hard cold butter. But for the majority of the year our mid-day temps require refrigeration.

I would love to try this powdered butter, I'm very curious as to what it might taste like, and it's probably easy to whip up a batch of flavored butter. I'm pretty attached to my grass-fed butter, but I'll put this on my Christmas list.

Gindeejao, I keep my eggs at room temperature too, in my pantry. I remember reading once that the reason they keep forever (like, really, I've kept them for 3 months before and they were fine) is because of a very very thin waxy coating that covers them and seals up the shell, which by itself is naturally porous. The eggs that I buy are free-range ones that the farm delivers weekly, occasionally complete with errant feathers stuck to them, to my local butcher (in inner-west Melbourne! I love Melbourne). I have a feeling that if you buy cage eggs from the supermarket they probably have been washed with sanitiser or something, and the whole special-coating thing might not work out so well. Moral of the story: Don't buy factory shit!

Not the most important or useful item in an emergency, and really there's no space to keep this kind of thing in a NY apartment.