Want to put a better bit of butter on your knife? The way prices have shot up over the past two years, you may feel you are already spreading liquid gold on your toast, so it pays to make your pennies count. Before you exclaim at the price of our supermarket winner bear in mind two things. One, it’s a full 90p cheaper than M&S’s Cornish Gold, but pipped it in our tastings. And two, thank your lucky stars you don’t have Michelin-starred tastebuds. The top chefs’ favourite is unpasteurised Bungay Raw Cultured butter from Fen Farm Dairy in Suffolk — yours for just £7 for 200g. You’ll want to spread that as thinly as you can.
Tony’s pickM&S Food Collection French Butter
250g, £2.90
This has it all: a salty kick, sweet creaminess and lovely lactic tang. Forget the baguette, I could eat this on its own 5/5
Waitrose Salted French Butter
250g, £2.45
As salty as a force 10 gale in the Hebrides, but it’s a crunchy, flavoursome butter for the savoury-toothed 4/5
Kerrygold Irish Butter
250g, Sainsbury’s, £2.40
This is my go-to among the big brands. Sweet, creamy and perfect on a slice of toast 3/5
Aldi Cowbelle British Salted Butter
250g, £1.79
Not the best around, but Aldi delivers a decent middle-of-the-road product at a price that is hard to argue with 2/5
Anchor Butter
200g, Tesco, £2
Inoffensive and will help to lubricate a cheese sandwich. Note the sly size reduction 2/5
Lurpak Slightly Salted
200g, Ocado, £2.15
Wan, greasy and bland. Another victim of shrinkflation, but at least it means there’s less to get through 1/5
Dining and Cooking