It might be chronically unfashionable to admit in these days of cheap industrial margarines and people super-heroing coconut oil, but I rather love butter, even if it does make me feel like I’m Superman with an obsession for wearing kryptonite underpants over my tights. So this is my hymn to all that is beautiful about that buttercup-yellow, golden ray of dairy sunshine that melts in your mouth with the barest of warm kisses. Let’s start with the basics…

1. Melting momentum:

Butter is the raison d’etre of crumpets, thick white toast, hot cross buns and bread and butter pudding. Without it, they are all like Ferraris with wooden wheels.

2. Eggs appeal

Butter isn’t just great on those toast soldiers that you dunk in your soft-boiled eggs, it’s also good for peeling the egg shells. Put a little butter on each thumb and discover how much easier the shell comes off.

3. Let them eat butter

Butter also takes peasant doughs to new heights, allowing them to become churros, choux pastry for profiteroles, cinnamon scrolls, or even the ’cake’ that got Marie Antoinette into all that trouble – brioche.

4. When it comes to the crunch

Butter is the power behind the world’s best biscuits. Without it, Scottish shortbread, American chocolate chip cookies and Anzacs would be rubbish. It’s what makes them delicious and friable (crumbly) and, when combined in the right way with sugar, gives them their snap. There’s no finer example than a brown sugar crunchie (tweet me for the recipe!).

5. In the thick of it

Butter is capable of other magic. Mixed with flour, it gives us the roux that not only thickens a chowder or cheese sauce, but also makes them so velvety. Instead of cream or milk, try adding stock to make a silky-smooth velouté that can be the basis of the very best gravy you’ve ever made.

6. Whisk factor

Butter is also whisked cold into sauces like hollandaise to enrichen them, but I’m not a fan, as I reckon this tends to deaden the flavour. I’d rather not use butter for frying because of its low smoke point, but it is wonderful for poaching shellfish or crustacean flesh. Or try gently cooking a delicate snapper fillet in a little pan of the foamy stuff.

7. Burning issues

Butter burning isn’t always a disaster, of course. If you catch it in the pan just as the milk solids start to turn brown and nutty, you have what’s known as burnt butter or beurre noisette (literally, ’hazelnut butter’). For even more burnt-butter bang for your buck, add a spoonful of skimmed milk powder to the pan to increase the amount of milk solids being toasted. Hit your burnt butter with a little lemon juice to arrest the cooking process and add complexity. Now you have something magical to pour over pumpkin gnocchi, prawn ravioli, roast sweet potato or even the base for a wonderful ice cream. In fact, take your cue from its French name and garnish any dish that features burnt butter with toasted hazelnuts.

8. Flavour payload

Butter is also wonderful at holding flavours. Think of mixing softened butter with herbs such as tarragon and parsley, then chilling and slicing to serve on a sizzling steak; melting it with crushed garlic into oven-crusty bread; blending with white miso to brush on grilled corn; or pureeing with good anchovies to spread on thin slices of hot toast.

9. Quality cut-through

Butter has other magical properties. Rub it on your hands after scaling or prepping fish: when you wash your hands with soap and water afterwards, you’ll find that, miraculously, the fishy smell will have gone and you’ll have lovely smooth hands and supple fingernails into the bargain! And while we all know a hot knife glides easily through butter, if you need to cut up something sticky like toffee, dates or really fudgy brownies, you’ll find your knife will cut through them far more cleanly if you butter the blade first.

10. Fridge benefits

Butter isn’t only for helping you in the kitchen. My grandmother used to think butter did wonders for sunburn, but, while it can soften your skin, I find sliced tomatoes are far more effective at removing the sting and heat of a badly burnt back. Butter can also help you get chewing gum out of your hair, lubricate a squeaky hinge, be used as an emergency shaving cream (at a pinch), remove Texta ’make-up’ from the face of your five-year-old’s Barbie and even get a stubborn wedding ring off your finger… or so I’ve been told.

11. Sweetening the deal

Butter makes so many recipes better – whether it’s a simple butter cake, lemon delicious or lemon-curd tartlet with a buttery biscuit base – so it was hard to know which to pick for this month’s recipe. For me, one of butter’s primary beauties when cooking is the role it plays in making caramel, so it has to be the recipe I’ve shared on the previous page. Butterscotch sauce is all about this magical love affair between butter and sugar – a love affair that is all about giving you a warm hug and a lovely feeling of comfort, whatever the weather.

For more posts and recipes by Matt Preston visit here.

For Matt Preston’s killer butterscotch sauce with burnt-butter bananas and ice cream visit here.