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Butter Compactor

Perfect butter bricks.
  (+10, -5)
(+10, -5)
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When I put butter on a piece of toast, I generally cut a slice off the top instead of off the side. When I butter my corn, I just roll the ear over the brick a few times. I find these methods convenient, yet they destroy the brick, and eventually I end up with a halfpipe instead of a rectangular prism.

I want an advanced butter dish that I can plug into the wall after every n'th meal, and after it does its thing, I have a brick of butter again. The tray and lid are responsible for gently warming the butter, while the lid locks down over the tray, forming a seal. Via motor or hand crank, a metal plate slides from one end of the butter dish (which is now a sealed capsule) to the other, compressing the butter. When the resistance is too great, (ie. the butter is now a brick), the lid is lifted off and I can spatula the rest of the warm butter of the walls of the lid onto the brick. Lick the spatula and there you go.

Dishwasher safe is good too.

Cuit_au_Four, May 28 2007

But my grandma had one http://www.journalo...s.com/hearthoct.htm
and I remember my aunt talking about re-moulding the butter before Sunday's dinner [lurch, May 29 2007]

Butterball Farms http://www.butterballfarms.com
All kinds of butter shapes. Anything is possible! [jpnick, Nov 02 2007]

[link]






       Modify one of those aluminium can crushers - may be more powerful than you need, but since when has that been a problem around here?
Mount it beside the fridge (probably not in the fridge) and give the butter a squish before putting it away each time. Depending of the design of your butter dish/tub, you may need to squish sides, then ends, then top, to return to true brickiness.
neutrinos_shadow, May 28 2007
  

       Surely this would be the responsibility of one's staff?
MaxwellBuchanan, May 28 2007
  

       Or, perhaps, distaff?
They still need a tool to do it with. I like it - and will probably buy the wife one for her birthday, or Mother's day if I forget. It may be useless, but at least it's something she doesn't have already.
lurch, May 29 2007
  

       //Surely this would be the responsibility of one's staff?//   

       In one's dreams.
pertinax, May 29 2007
  

       Does it matter if we natter
About nature's butter patter?
In a 'brick' or just a 'splatter'
Eating butter makes you fatter!


Personally I'd go for some sort of butter coring device to preserve the pristine geometry of the brick.
DrBob, May 29 2007
  

       Throw it away and use a nice new one every time. Re-use, recycle. Bah!
the dog's breakfast, May 29 2007
  

       Inspired by DrBob:   

       Batty baker battered butter,
'til he said this butter's splatted.
Splatted butter made him bitter,
so he bought a butter patter.
  

       Batty baker's butter patter
patted splatted butter, yet a
passing pinniped would pat a
buggered brick of butter better.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 29 2007
  

       And the 'Channelling Dr. Seuss' Award goes to... [MaxwellBuchanan]!
neutrinos_shadow, May 29 2007
  

       or you can mend your butter-cutting ways and just take a slice off the end of the brick, so a shorter brick remains.
xandram, May 29 2007
  

       Would this not calrify the butter and give you two layers? One runny and one buttery?   

       Might need to have an agitator of some sort.
Giblet, May 30 2007
  

       I, too, wonder what long-term effect this would have on the butter. Can you really melt and congeal (or whatever the transitive form of that would be) it over and over without having it change into Crisco or something?
Ander, Jun 01 2007
  

       //or you can mend your butter-cutting ways and just take a slice off the end of the brick, so a shorter brick remains.   

       Common sense? In MY halfbakery?
Cuit_au_Four, Jun 01 2007
  

       Corn-on-the-cob, straight to the brick? That's not nice man.
theleopard, Jun 01 2007
  

       Once you've got the butter extrusion/moulding technology perfected, there's no reason to stop at rectangular butter - a whole range of Platonic solids should be possible - cone, tetrahedon, decahedron, icosahedron, etc., as well as famous buildings and monuments - one quick pull of the butter-compacting lever and your butter's a perfect scale model of Mount Rushmore, or the Taj Mahal, or the HalfBakery data centre.
hippo, Jun 01 2007
  

       (((( )))) <Applauds MaxwellBuchanan>
DrBob, Jun 01 2007
  

       So sorry about the common sense...anyway, I roll the corn on the brick, but I like the halfpipe; all the other pieces of corn fit it there perfectly.
xandram, Jun 01 2007
  

       Bunch of heathens! The lot a ya!
theleopard, Jun 01 2007
  

       Higgledy-piggledy
Buttery pattie is
Better if patted back
Into a brick
  

       Baker's solution's so
Extrapolatory,
Some annotators might
Think he's a ...
  

       fool. ;)   

       <no offense intended - just can't stay away from competitive doggerel>
pertinax, Jun 01 2007
  

       <doffs metaphorical hat to Dr. Bob>   

       Corn grooves the butter,
Best regularize it now.
Butter compactor.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 01 2007
  

       If you had a gently refrigerated wall with brick shaped indents, after use, whoever was responsible for the shaping of the butter could (or potentially a small table trebuchet could be used to) hurl the butter at the wall, wherein upon impact (of sufficient velocity) it would be moulded almost instantly back into a brick-shaped form. After some time under refrigeration, this moulded butter pat could then be simply prised out of the appropriate indentation, and reused at leisure.
zen_tom, Jun 01 2007
  

       Why stick to bricks? I would quite like a perfect butter cube, or perhaps an octahedron.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 01 2007
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

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