No. 2444

Butter Borders

Bordures en Beurre

These borders are not very practical; they can only be made when the temperature is very low and are only mentioned in case there be no other resource available; yet they can be of great utility. The butter should be well kneaded to remove all foreign matter that it might contain; it should be colored green or red; spread it out on sheets of paper three-sixteenths of an inch thick, then leave to cool; invert these on wet napkins, and remove the paper; cut it into rounds, rings, or triangles. Dress them on the border of a dish, alternating the colors; the dish must be kept in the refrigerator until required.

← No. 2443 Vegetable Borders The Cold Service No. 2445 Molded Jelly Border →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garde-manger trim rather than a dish in itself: colored butter rolled thin, chilled hard, and cut into shapes to edge a cold platter. Ranhofer himself flags it as a last resort, and the reason is temperature — everything depends on keeping the butter below the point where it softens.

The hinge is coldWork in the coldest space available and chill the sheeted butter until it snaps rather than bends. Butter begins to soften around 60F and the cut shapes will slump and weep on the plate; a sheet pan resting on ice, or the freezer for the final firming, does what a cold nineteenth-century larder did.
"Well kneaded to remove all foreign matter"Ranhofer does not say how; the phrase most likely points to the old practice of working butter (often under cold water) to expel residual buttermilk and salt specks. Unsalted butter needs less of it, but a brief working with a spatula on a chilled marble slab still gives the smooth, even body the shapes require.
ThicknessThree-sixteenths of an inch is a little under 5 mm. Thinner than that and the rings break when lifted; much thicker and they read as slabs rather than trim.
Sheets of paperParchment is the modern equivalent and releases far better than the plain paper of the period. Roll the butter between two sheets to even thickness, then chill before peeling.
ColoringPeriod kitchens used spinach green and cochineal or beet red. Gel or paste colors work far better here than liquid, which introduces water and makes the butter streak and separate; knead the color in fully before sheeting or you will get marbling.
Wet napkinsThe damp cloth keeps the chilled butter from sticking and lets you peel the paper cleanly. Cold, wrung-out cotton, not a sodden towel.
CuttingDip the cutter in hot water and wipe it dry between cuts; a warm edge parts the butter cleanly instead of dragging. Work quickly and return the shapes to the refrigerator in a single layer.
Yield and useIt is decoration for cold service — the pieces are edible but are meant to be looked at, so make them the day of service and keep the finished dish refrigerated until it goes to table.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to a run of items on borders — vegetable, jelly, butter — used to frame the elaborate cold platters of the late-Victorian buffet. Cold service at that level was as much architecture as cookery: dishes were set on socles of rice paste, tallow or ice and edged with cut garnishes, and butter was one of the plastic media a garde-manger could shape, alongside carved lard and aspic. Ranhofer's unusual candor here — "not very practical... only mentioned in case there be no other resource available" — is a reminder of what mechanical refrigeration was still like in the 1890s. Delmonico's had ice and cold rooms, but reliable low working temperatures were not something a chef could assume, and butter work has largely been displaced in the modern kitchen by gelatin, chocolate and sugar, all of which hold their shape at room temperature.