We Asked Professional Bakers for Their Favorite Butter — All Their Picks Have One Thing in Common

If you’re shopping for baking ingredients, you might not think twice about the type of butter you grab. Sure, you will probably pick between salted and unsalted, but everything else, for the most part, should taste the same once it’s mixed baked into cookies, pies, or biscuits — right? Wrong.

Not only do butter brands vary in taste and quality when smeared onto a piece of bread (as proven by our butter taste test), but they also will have a major impact on whatever you’re baking. “In many pastries, the butter isn’t just fat, it’s also flavor, so quality is key,” says 2020 F&W Best New Chef Camille Cogswell, who regularly uses butter to bake pies and cakes for her upcoming project, Walnut Family Bakery. “It should also have a clean and consistent flavor to be versatile in all your baked goods,” she adds.

Related: Stop Storing Your Butter the Wrong Way — These 6 Items Will Keep It Fresh

We reached out to professional bakers to discover the best butter for baking. While there was a range of answers, one brand was a clear favorite.

The best butter for baking: Isigny Saint-Mère Unsalted Butter

Made in Normandy, a grassy, oceanside region of France, Isigny Saint-Mère is known worldwide for producing high-quality butter that distinctly represents its terroir. It's rich, creamy, and has notes of hazelnuts.

“Since I started baking about six years ago, I made the commitment to only bring in Isigny butter for everything we do, and have stuck with that mindset since,” says Shawn Bergin, owner of Bakery Four in Denver. “It also has an incredible flavor, as it's cultured and fermented grass-fed cream.”

Bakers love this butter for laminated pastries in particular, due to its high percentage of butterfat — the natural fat found in milk that gives butter a richer taste and a smoother consistency. Not only does this make the butter easier to spread for lamination, but it also leads to a flakier, more tender pastry.

“Isigny has a higher melting point and better plasticity than other brands of butter, which makes it perfect for lamination and proofing,” adds Bergin.

Related: Ina Garten Eats the Same Breakfast Everyday: Toast with a Generous Schmear of This French Butter

F&W Best New Chef Eunji Lee uses Isigny for all of her pastries at her New York City dessert shop, Lysée. So does Gautier Coiffard, co-owner of L’Appartement 4F. “Its high fat content (82%) makes the butter very malleable and easy to work with,” he says. We primarily use it for the lamination process in our croissants, but it is also delicious as is when spread on a slice of baguette.”

Other baker-recommended butters

Although Isigny was recommended to us by the majority of bakers and pastry chefs, it’s not the only butter that’s great for baking. There is one quality that unifies all of the selections: a butterfat percentage of 82%. When in doubt, look for a butter with that number.

Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter

This Irish butter is the go-to for 2023 F&W Best New Chef Caroline Schiff. “It has an awesome grassy, sweetness to it and of course, a great fat content,” she says. “The texture is superior for buttercream, in my opinion.”

Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter

Out of all the domestic butters, Schiff’s favorite is from Vermont Creamery. While American butters typically have 80% or 81% butterfat (they must contain at least 80% to be considered butter), this is made in a European style, meaning it has at least 82% butterfat like Isigny and Kerrygold. Plus, this butter is pasteurized with live bacteria, giving it a tangy edge.

Related: This Is Martha Stewart’s Favorite Butter for Baking

Plugrà Unsalted Butter

Cogswell always purchases whichever butter has the highest fat content which, according to her, is often Plugrà. Made in the United States to mimic European-style butter, Plugrà is smooth and full of flavor.

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