Peach Compound Butter

This Peach Compound Butter may be the most delicious thing you’ll eat all summer.

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I absolutely adore a compound butter.  You take butter, which is already a pretty perfect food on its own, and that you add more things to it?!?!  What genius thought this up?  I really want to know because I want to give them a giant hug.

Compound butter just makes everything better.  There are literally countless variations, and you can mix and match ingredients to your liking.  Then, when you want to level something up a notch, you just toss a pat of your compound butter on top of it, and boom!  Your steak or chicken or biscuit is 10,000 times better than it was before. 

This recipe came from a desire to do as much as I could with the 12.5 pounds of peaches that I bought last month before having to freeze half of them before they went bad.  You’ve seen a few peach recipes in the past few weeks and there are a few more coming up so I hope you like peaches as much as I do!

This is by far one of my favorite uses for peaches though, and I’m sure you guys will love it as much as I do.

A little bit about Compound Butter

Classic compound butter, known in French as Beurre Maître d’Hôtel, was made tableside by whipping parsley and lemon juice into softened butter, and then placed on steak to melt as it rested.  The herbs and citrus counterbalance the richness of the butter. 

Lucky for all of us that people didn’t stop there, and now an almost endless variety of compound butters can be yours with minimal time and effort.

Shopping List for Peach Compound Butter

• Unsalted Butter

• 1 Peach

• Light or dark brown sugar

• 1 Orange

A couple of tips for making the best compound butter:

Peaches:  Dice them very small – the larger the pieces are the harder it will be for the butter to hold its shape.

Taste: the butter’s flavor deepens over time, and while you only really need to refrigerate for a few hours after making it, it’s better if you wait until the next day to eat it.

Butter:  this recipe is all about the butter, so more so than ever before, buy the very best butter you can afford.  Also make sure you check the expiration date on the butter to ensure you’re getting the freshest butter available to you.

Salted Vs. Unsalted Butter:  unless a recipe specifically calls for salted butter and gives a clear reason why that butter should be used, I use unsalted butter 99.9% of the time.  I prefer to add my own salt to recipes, and compound butter is no exception.  You also get to choose your salt this way. Is it a recipe that should use Kosher salt?  Or is Maldon Sea Salt the way to go?  Maybe flavored salts would work better?  Having that control is key as far as I’m concerned.

Another word about softening butter:  make sure the butter is crazy super soft.  I recommend leaving the butter out overnight.  If you can’t do that, 4-6 hours minimum at room temperature.  The softer the butter is, the easier it will be to incorporate and get an even distribution of the mix-ins.  If you forget to leave the butter out overnight and you absolutely need to get the butter softened quickly you can do the following:

1. Boil a pot of water and place a wrapped stick of butter on a plate, standing up on its end.

2. Once the water is boiling, pour some of it in a water glass, and let the glass sit for 3-5 minutes to get really hot. 

3. Pour the water out, and place the glass over the stick of butter, and let it sit for 8-10 minutes.

4. Repeat until the butter is fully softened.  This will get you pretty softened butter in about 20-30 minutes total.

I don’t recommend the microwave method for softening butter for this recipe because the center of the stick of butter never gets fully soft before the outside melts. 

What Makes Peach Compound Butter Great?

• It’s delicious.

• It’s versatile.  You can swap and sub ingredients to your liking.

• It works with both sweet and savory dishes.  It goes just as well on a biscuit as it does on a pork chop.

• It lasts for quite awhile in the fridge and/or freezer.

• It’s about as summery as food can get!

So, what are you waiting for??  Go buy some peaches and make this butter!

Yield

½ Cup

Author

Sara Rauckhorst

Prep time

5 Min

Inactive time

8 Hour

Total time

8 H & 5 M

Print

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Peach Compound Butter

This Peach Compound Butter may be the most delicious thing you’ll eat all summer.

Ingredients

Peach Compound Butter

• ½ Cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter at room temperature
• ¼ cup finely diced peaches (you can leave the skin on or remove it if you choose)
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar (I prefer dark)
• 2 teaspoons fresh orange juice
• 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest

Instructions

To Make Peach Compound Butter

1. Set your butter out to soften the night before if possible.
2. In a medium bowl, add the butter, peaches, sugar, orange juice and zest and stir to fully combine, making sure the peaches are as evenly distributed as possible.
3. Spoon the butter into the center of a large piece of plastic wrap. 
4. Using the plastic wrap, shape the butter into a log about 6 inches long, and tightly wrap the plastic wrap around the butter.  
5. Chill for at least two hours or overnight before eating.

Notes:

To soften butter quickly:

1.      Boil a pot of water and place a wrapped stick of butter on a plate, standing up on its end.

2.      Once the water is boiling, pour some of it in a water glass, and let the glass sit for 3-5 minutes to get really hot. 

3.      Pour the water out, and place the glass over the stick of butter, and let it sit for 8-10 minutes.

4.      Repeat until the butter is fully softened. This will get you pretty softened butter in about 20-30 minutes total.

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