COOK: Vanilla Bean Marmalade Compound Butter
This delicious compound butter flavored with vanilla and grapefruit marmalade is marvelous on scones, biscuits, and your morning slice of sourdough toast. It’s also incredibly simple to make, with only 2-3 ingredients, and stores well in the fridge or freezer. It’s a versatile ingredient to have on hand, and also makes a thoughtful homemade gift. Add a jar or parchment-covered roll, tied off with a smart ribbon or bits of butcher’s twine, to a gift basket of homemade bread, scones, or muffins for a fantastic gift from your kitchen!
This vanilla bean marmalade compound butter is easier to spread than plain marmalade, and great for folks who like the flavor of marmalade but are bothered by the texture. It’s also a great way to save marmalade that’s gone a little dry or crystallized in the fridge but still has a good flavor, and give it new life. I’ll post a recipe for my grapefruit vanilla marmalade recipe soon, but you can use any marmalade in this and add vanilla bean paste or the seeds from a split vanilla bean to get a similar result. If you use vanilla bean seeds from a fresh vanilla pod, save the rest of the vanilla bean pod to add to a jar of spirits for homemade vanilla extract or to a jar of vanilla sugar!
How to Use Vanilla Marmalade Compound Butter
Sweet and Dessert Recipe Ideas:
The vanilla bean marmalade butter can class up a simple meal of bread and jam or can serve as an ingredient in fancier desserts. Fold in a bit of powdered or icing sugar and use this marmalade butter as the filling for a shortbread or sugar sandwich cookie. Spread it between thin layers of genoise (a plain French sponge cake) along with a citrus-flavored simple syrup and citrus supremes (cut and seeded segments of citrus fruit) and top with stabilized whipped cream or a white chocolate ganache. Spread it on a rectangle of sweet roll or danish dough before rolling up and cutting into pinwheels, baking, and topping with a drizzle of vanilla glaze with citrus zest, or use as the filling for rugelach cookies.
Savory Recipe Ideas:
This compound butter is even at home in savory applications, and would pair with salmon, sole, scallops or other sweet and rich seafood, or even with chicken, veal, or pork loin, either pan-seared or baked en papillote. For pan searing, use a plain butter or other heat-resistant neutral fat for the sear so the sugar and citrus in the compound butter doesn’t burn and become bitter. Set the seared protein aside on a plate in a hot oven to rest and finish cooking. Then, deglaze the pan with some white wine and and light stock and whisk in the marmalade butter to make a pan sauce. Since baking en papillote (“in paper”- using parchment or foil to make an envelope or other package shape to contain the steam and flavors while cooking the ingredients) is a gentle heat application, you can add a pat of the marmalade butter directly to the ingredients. Try it with baby carrots or peeled parsnips for an elegant vegetable side dish!
Vanilla Grapefruit Marmalade Compound Butter
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter 2 sticks or 8 oz (sub unsalted butter + salt to taste)
- ½ cup grapefruit-vanilla marmalade
- OR
- ½ cup citrus marmalade (grapefruit, orange, or lemon)
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or seeds from ½ vanilla bean, split and scraped (save pod for vanilla sugar or extract)
Instructions
- Add the marmalade and vanilla to a food processor bowl and pulse gently a few times. You can skip this step if your marmalade is fine and not crystalized. This one had larger slices of rind that I wanted to break up for easier spreading.
- Add the butter, cut into tablespoons or large chunks. It will blend easier if it is at least lightly softened.
- Pulse the food processor, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl often until no more chunks of butter remain and the mixture is relatively uniform.
- Pulse or beat the compound butter mixture until it is light and fluffy. It should be fully emulsified and combined, and resemble thick frosting.
- Scrape the compound butter mixture into a clean jar, or shape into logs by dropping dollops of the butter in a line on rectangles of parchment paper and rolling tightly to make neat cylinders of butter. Tuck or twist and tie off the ends and store in the freezer for up to 6 months (place the parchment wrapped logs in a sealed plastic bag or container for storage longer than a month).
