Local Goods: Hand-Rolled Butter

Rochdale products photo courtesy of www.wedge.coop

The new Rochdale Farms butter and cheeses use milk from a collective of small-herd Amish dairy farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin who hand-milk and pasture their cows. The butter is produced at a third-generation family run creamery in Richland Center, Wisconsin and made fresh to order in small batches.

While measuring may be slightly less convenient with butter that's formed into misshapen, paper-wrapped logs, there's something reassuringly nostalgic about it--you feel one step closer to the age-old process of churning liquid cream into solid. The butter has a consistent texture and a bold, buttery flavor that was similar to the Organic Valley brand I had in the fridge, but the Rochdale has a slightly stronger tang due to the whey cream that's added as a culture. In any case, it's comparably priced at $4.69/16 oz. and worth checking out for holiday baking.