Fans Say Costco Butter Has Changed For the Worse—I Put It to the Test

Is the Costco butter conspiracy real?

A viral Reddit thread kicked off with a simple question: “Anyone else have Costco butter issues?” That question immediately resonated with hundreds of home bakers who have been having trouble with their tried and true holiday recipes while using Costco’s “blue box” salted butter.

Many claimed that the formula must have changed because this year was the first year their bakes were crumbly and uncooperative. But after switching to a different butter brand, they had success with the exact same recipe. So what happened? Did the butter really change? We put it to the test against other butter brands to see how it performed.

What Is the Costco Butter Conspiracy?

Reddit user monster0519 kicked off the conversation saying, “My mom and I have been Costco "blue box" salted butter loyalists for some time. I saw a TikTok where a baker had issues with a recipe and had made it with Costco butter for years but recently had been having issues...she finally tried with another butter and issue solved. Didn't think much of it until Thanksgiving. We use butter for our pie crust recipe and that crust would not hold up! 2 batches just crumbly and could not get it to roll. Went to store got different butter...and what do you know...same recipe, worked again. Something changed with their butter. Did anyone else have issues over the holidays with the butter? I'm hesitant to bake with it for any recipe now.”

Many users jumped in to say that they had the same issues with Costco’s butter recently. Some users suggested bakers should stick to unsalted butter when baking, but several others mentioned they had the same issue with Costco’s “yellow box” unsalted butter. And a recent viral TikTok video showed a home baker who claimed Costco’s yellow box unsalted butter caused her go-to Swiss meringue buttercream recipe to fail for the first time ever.

I happen to be a Costco yellow box unsalted butter loyalist for my go-to “basic” butter and decided to put the butter to the test myself. One thing that’s incredibly important to note is that most of the users on this Reddit thread were comparing the Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter (an American-style butter) to Kerrygold and other European or Costco’s version of such (the Kirkland Signature Grass-Fed Butter).

What Is Costco’s Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter?

Why is this differentiation so important? American and European butter are not comparable products. The standards for butterfat in the two are different: European butter standards by definition have 2% more butterfat than American butter standards. So what makes up the difference in the American butter is a higher water content. And that is not unique to Costco’s butter—it’s usually the case for almost all American-style butter in the dairy case at any grocery store.

To keep this test apples-to-apples, I only used American-style butters whose nutrition label listed 11 grams of fat per 14-gram serving (compared to 12 grams of fat per 14-gram serving in most European butters, like Kerrygold unsalted). I also stuck with all unsalted butter. I used the Kirkland Signature Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter, one national name-brand unsalted sweet cream butter, and my grocery store’s generic unsalted sweet cream butter.

How Does Kirkland Signature’s Sweet Cream Butter Compare to Other Butter Brands?

First I tried each butter in my go-to all-butter pie crust recipe. Admittedly, while mixing the dough up and smooshing it into a disc before refrigerating, I did find the Kirkland Signature butter created the driest, most crumbly dough of the three. That being said, it wasn’t completely unmanageable.

After letting them all sit in the fridge overnight, I found that rolling them out the next day, they all performed about the same. I had no issues rolling any of the doughs into 12-inch discs, transferring them to a pie plate, and crimping the edges. None of the doughs were crumbly and they all held together nicely.

Next, I tried the butter to make a batch of cookies. Again, I didn’t see any difference between each dough. The butters all creamed nicely with the sugar and led to a soft, cohesive, and scoopable dough.

Did Costco’s Butter Change?

It’s hard to say if Costco’s Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter changed since I wasn’t able to compare the current version to a previous version, but here’s how it stacked up against other butter brands.

While I did find working with cold Costco butter a bit more finicky—the Kirkland Signature butter led to a slightly more crumbly pie dough—it didn’t affect the final product, nor did it make rolling the dough more difficult. I also noticed no difference in the cookie dough made with Kirkland Signature butter.

So if I had to guess, there is a chance that the Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter might have slightly less butterfat (and therefore a higher water content) than it did previously, or at least compared to other brands. But, if that is true it doesn’t seem to be enough to warrant boycotting Costco’s butter. All in all, it performed on par with other American-style, 80%-butterfat butters.

Tips for Avoiding Crumbly Baked Goods

First and foremost: always follow the recipe as written, avoid substitutions without researching them first, and avoid taking shortcuts unless you’ve tried them before. Here are some additional tips to ensure baking success:

• Don’t use American butter in place of European: If the recipe you are using specifically calls for Kerrygold or another high-fat butter, stick with that. If you swap in a lower-fat butter (like this Costco butter) when a higher-fat butter (like Kerrygold) is called for, you are going to get a more crumbly, less desirable result.

• Let your dough hydrate: Many cookie and pie recipes tell you to refrigerate your dough for a few hours or even overnight before rolling out and/or baking. This nap time in the fridge allows all the dry ingredients to absorb moisture from the wet ingredients (including butter) so they become fully hydrated and therefore less crumbly. So don’t skip this step! It wasn’t until after refrigerating the pie dough made with Costco butter overnight that the dough became easy to work with and a cinch to roll out.

• Use the right temperature butter: If the recipe you are working with calls for softened or room temperature butter, make sure you are actually letting it warm up a bit before adding it to your recipe. If the recipe calls for cold butter, don’t take the butter out of the fridge until you’re ready to add it. For example, trying to cream cold butter and sugar together for a cookie recipe won’t work if the butter is too cold, and will result in a crumbly texture in your dough. Likewise, baking a pie crust when the butter is too warm will result in the butter melting out of the crust instead of baking into a light, flaky pastry.
  

Read the original article on All Recipes.