Bake the best buttery?

Slow Food Aberdeen City & Shire has launched a search for the world’s best buttery. Entries must be made to a traditional recipe of just flour, water, butter and/or lard, yeast, sugar (common but optional) and salt: no additives, palm/vegetable oil or anything else.

The competition is divided into a category for bakeries/professional bakers, and one for home/amateur bakers.

You can apply via the Slow Food Aberdeen City & Shire website, where you can also find an example recipe.

Online entries close on 14 November 2024.

Finalists must be able to take part in the live bake off at NESCOL (North East of Scotland College) City Campus on 21 November 2024. The butteries will be judged in a blind taste test by a panel including hospitality professionals and Slow Food members.

What is a buttery?

Also known as the rowie (from the word roll), the buttery is a crispy, flaky, laminated bread, most closely associated with Aberdeen City and Shire. It is said that fishermen sailing from ports up and down Scotland’s north east coast historically took butteries with them because the high fat and salt content prevented the rolls from staling quickly during long trips. 

Many products sold today as ‘butteries’ are very different, however. World Buttery Championship coordinator Martin Gillespie explains: “Over the years, the typical buttery recipe has been altered to the point that it has become almost unrecognisable. In many cases, commercial bakeries have replaced butter and lard with margarine. Not only does this affect the taste and texture of the buttery, but if using non-sustainable palm oil it has a negative environmental impact.”

Doughers Ark

Concern about the potential loss of the Aberdeen Traditional Buttery led Slow Food Scotland to nominate it as an endangered heritage food in the Ark of Taste. 

Wendy Barrie, Slow Food Scotland’s leader for the Ark of Taste, describes the project as a valuable record of food heritage, saying that it “was created by Slow Food to catalogue endangered foods and associated food culture, lest they are lost or forgotten forever.” 

Martin Gillespie says, “We are delighted that the buttery has been entered into the Ark of Taste. With the World Buttery Championship, we aim to promote the traditional recipe in order to help preserve its heritage and to remind people what a buttery should really taste like.”

The World Buttery Championship was launched in 2018 to celebrate the buttery’s acceptance in The Ark, and to raise awareness of the Slow Food movement.

A treat, rather than a staple
Like any enriched bread, the Real Bread Campaign suggests that butteries should be savoured as an occasional indulgence, rather than shovelled down as an everyday filler. Please also read our notes on salt.