Butter boards become newest viral food trend: Why people love it
Name a stronger power couple than bread and butter.
Just think, for centuries, the duo has completed breakfast dishes at diners and satiated hungry bellies before the main course at restaurants everywhere. Together, the pair settles queasy stomachs and offers a failsafe alternative to drinking on an empty stomach. If we’re speaking in food parables, the strongest example of a committed partnership has been the relationship between bread and butter.
Like every marriage, though, there comes a time for a refresh.
Today’s culinary artists were up for the task of bringing the spark back to the beloved pairing. Butter boards, the latest viral food trend, have descended upon TikTok and Instagram to spice things up for bread and butter.
A take on charcuterie or cheese boards, butter boards reimagine the age-old staple, using softened butter as a canvas for ornate edible toppings. The whole thing is intended to be swiped and swirled with tears of fresh bread.
Just as bread and butter as a delectable combo is no new discovery, the concept of a butter board isn’t either. In his 2017 James Beard Award-winning cookbook “Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables,” Portland chef and restaurateur Joshua McFadden introduced a recipe for Herbed Butter with Warm Bread, featuring a spread of butter generously seasoned with cracked black pepper, chile flakes, herbs, citrus zest, chopped pickles, capers and vibrant edible flower petals. Just last month, New York-based cook Justine Doiron gave new life to the dish with her own interpretation, inspiring thousands of recreations across the globe.
The appeal? Cat Shapiro, founder of Thyme and Honey, a metro Detroit catering company that specializes in charcuterie and cheese boards — and a local participant in the butter board trend — saw it as an easy dish for home cooks to recreate.
“Butter boards are simple and attainable whether you’re a chef or not,” she said. “And it’s a pretty way to create something that people are already eating.”
In creating a smoky butter board with Middle Eastern flavors, Shapiro followed the same philosophy that guides her work at Thyme and Honey — to celebrate local and small businesses.
The key, Shapiro said, is to start with a base of quality, room-temperature butter. Rather than grabbing the stick that’s been basking in the scent of your refrigerator for weeks, opt for artisanal butter sourced from a Michigan dairy farm or even a European or Amish brand. Shapiro layered a striped marble board with a coat of pasteurized, grade-A, applewood-smoked butter made by Boss Mouse Cheese in Kingsley, Michigan. A quality board, she said, is also essential.
“If you’re creating one for a party, make sure you’re using a board that will stay room temperature so that the butter doesn’t melt off of it after a long period of time,” Shapiro said, recommending marble, wood or ceramic boards as trusted options.
She then topped the butter with mini, marinated, wild mushrooms, honeycomb from Bees in the D, thinly sliced radishes grown at Gaier Farms & Greenhouse in Armada, Michigan and sold at a farm stand in Eastern Market, bright edible flowers from Jim and Peter’s Farm in Southwest Detroit and Portland Salt Co. Portland Pita Salt, a small-batch za’atar blend. She paired the board with thick slices of Zingerman’s Pumpernickel Bread.
Butter boards cannot be overdone. Keeping a balance of flavors and textures in mind, the more ingredients, the merrier.
“Society looks at eating a slab of butter as being obnoxiously gross,” Shapiro said, however, the intention is to create a communal dish to be shared among loved ones.
“As long as it’s functional — and not wasteful — it can be really fun and creative. Julia Child, the queen herself said, ‘With enough butter, anything is good,’ and I resonate with that.”
Creating a butter board also offered an opportunity for Shapiro to utilize ingredients in her own arsenal. She drizzled the board with chili oil from her pantry, dotted it with sweet drops or Peruvian peppers and crowned it with fresh dill from her own garden. “The key is not to bury the butter, but to enhance and complement it.”
Shapiro is brainstorming her next butter board curation for an upcoming event.
In the days that followed Doiron’s viral TikTok recipe, a new wave of boards emerged. Today, there are cream cheese boards outfitted with smoked salmon, dill and capers; labneh boards topped with pomegranate seeds, za’atar and toasted pine nuts (and paired with warm pita); and burrata boards dressed in pesto, cherry tomatoes and pecorino Romano.
Everything, as it seems, is better artfully smeared across a board.
Follow @_thymeandhoney_ on Instagram to learn how to recreate Shapiro's applewood smoked butter board.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Butter boards trend hits TikTok, Instagram: 1 key thing to know
