What is Plugra Butter?? I have noticed that some cake decorating websites offer Plugra Buttercream for their frostings, and just wondered what it was??

It's an expensive European born butter with more butterfat in it.

[/i]Plugra is a brand of European style butter that has a higher percentage of butter fat compared to the American standard.. I have never used it in buttercream icings, but use it for Pate A Choux pastry dough (for cream puffs).. hth

We used to have an extra cream butter available here--maybe I've seen Plugra but I've never purchased it exactly. It's all super pricey. It does make a difference in the wow factor if your crowd has an educated enough palate for that difference.

I just wish they would lower the water content in regular butter--I was talking to a pastry chef buddy who also feels that butter currently is too watery--they must have found some wiggle room in the rules & regulations to be able to still mark it AA and still screw it up like that.

Didn't we used to get AAA butter? I didn't notice/can't remember but AA is not what it used to be to me.

And the butter from Sam's still seems better than the same grade at the grocery store--just my buttery observations.

Kate.. You are right about the water content... That is the reason I use name brand (Sam's is good too) butter. The store/inexpensive brands are all higher in water content.. I think GFS carries Plugra, and the cash n carry outlets..

You can't beat the higher butterfat butters for laminated doughs (puff pastry, croissants, danish). It's not worth the cost for buttercream, in my opinion (although I too use a "good" brand of butter, because the cheapie stuff is way too watery), but for pastries it can't be beat! Nothing beats some good Irish butter for eating (scones, bagels, etc) or homemade for that matter... yummmmmmmmmmm

Trivia: While Plugra (Ploo-grah) is a "european-style" butter, it's made right here in the good old USA by Keller's (their regular better is pretty good), but it was given it's name to sound more European... it's a combination of the French words plus + gras which means "more fat." So clever, those folks at Keller lol.

A higher butterfat butter also makes a difference in a cake where butter is a large part of the flavor profile - for example, in a pound cake. Try your best pound cake recipe (and add some real vanilla bean while you're out it) - REALLY good!