A Whole Lotta Butta!

If you saw my weekend update a few hours ago, you're likely scratching your head and pondering a 68 pound block o' butter. And I, being me, naturally didn't grab the camera and take a picture until we'd already sliced off a layer. But this first pic shows a pretty good representation of what 68 pounds of butter looks like...


That's a lotta butta. But how?? How do mere mortals come to possess so much coagulated cowjuice? Well, like so many things in life, it ain't what you know, it's who ya know.

I have a co-worker, who has a friend... the friend works at a local dairy plant, or warehouse, or something... And every now and then, the warehouse guys will goof while moving pallets around, and impale a block o' butter, rendering it un-sellable. Since quantities this large are generally sold by the pallet, the entire thing is broken down and sold to the employees at Crazy Liquidation Prices!

For example, lately when butter goes on sale at the store, it's $2.50 a pound. If you're lucky, you can find it for $2.00 a pound.

The 68 pound block o' butter cost us $34.

Yep, that's right. FIFTY CENTS PER POUND!!

And not only that, but at the rate we burn through the butta, that's got to be pretty close to a year's supply.



So today, for our "after church wholesome recreational activity," we cut the butta! We did a few of the three-pound blocks shown above, but the majority of them were somewhat similar to the familiar quarter-pound cube we all know and love. Since we don't have an industrial grade butter cutter, our cubes are very inexact. That just means that when I'm baking, I'll have to dole out the butter by weight rather than by following the little markers on the wrapper. Fine with me, my good buddy Alton Brown always says you should measure by weight rather than volume anyway.


Butter as far as the eye can see!

Now all the portions are in the freezer, ready to serve all our buttery needs for the rest of 2008 and beyond... The Brinkerhoffs are OFF the Butter Grid, Baby!!