So as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately, and in some ways I am turning into Italy’s Test Kitchen. A few months ago I made a batch of scones from the Cheese Board Collective cookbook (yeah Berkeley!). I had made this recipe before (and many others from this book) and it was delicious, but this time, I realized while stirring that the dough had a rancid taste, and I narrowed it down to the butter I was using, a seemingly unoffensive product simply called “Burro Formato Casalingo.” It may have been past its due date, but I suspected this was simply bad butter. The scones were almost inedible, and I began looking around (in Florence) for the best local butter.
I tried local favorite Mukki, which is fine, and Lurpak, the eurobutter that is apparently used by Wolfgang Puck (according to my friend who used to make pastries for his catering business). Lurpak is also fine. I even tried butter by the Slow Food dairy guy up in Piemonte, whose name I forget. His butter was good, but I finally found what I was really looking for – a pure, creamy, fresh-from the dairy taste – only in the butter made by Sterzing-Vipiteno, from high up in the Italian alpine region of Alto-Adige, where the cows speak German. This butter is totally delicious. Stay tuned for my musings on European flour …
December 17, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Well dear bay area lover, I come from the bay anbd worked all around in the desserts biz, including one of the most important (to me at least) phoenix pastaficio, and have been and will be living here in Firenze. If you want to get a group together I would be pleased to spend a day baking off american goodies.
thanks for putting up the blog.