With these fantastic flavours, Sublime butters should never be kept just for toast

I love butter. I eat it straight out the fridge (if no one is watching). I place great chunks of cold butter onto my dippy soldiers when I have a boiled egg.

I love it that in some older, traditional, restaurants in France, they serve up butter with the cheeseboard. Butter and cheese go great together.

The sad fact is though that butter isn’t what it was. It’s expensive for one thing, even standard supermarket butter has increased in price for reasons that haven’t been explained.

And standard butter is bland, lacking in colour and taste. You have to pay even more for the best. And some of the best is sublime.

No it really is, that’s not hyperbole, Sublime, is an award-winning flavoured butter brand that has just launched two new flavours to its range: Béarnaise and Garlic & Herb. 

They were originally created out of a desire to find a steak accompaniment that was less intrusive than a sauce, and which enhanced the meat’s flavours.Thing is though, you can use them for all kinds of things.

From meat, to fish, vegetables and, of course, bread. Although perhaps not for dippy soldiers.

We got some samples and eagerly looked around for things to add butter to.

Our allotment is at full power right now; we have thirty five early potato plants and that’s a lot of potatoes.So we dug some up, rushed home and after a quick wipe to remove any lingering mud, but leaving the delicious papery skins on, we boiled them up and lobbed in a knob of the Garlic  & Herb.

The new No5 Garlic & Herb variety has been created as a year-round favourite to complement their seasonal bestseller No 6 Garlic, Rosemary & Mint, which will be back on shelves next spring.

Well it was just perfect; it has to be best quality butter for this kind of thing and adding garlic and herbs is a winner. Saved a lot of effort making it ourselves.

This is the kind of butter you keep in the freezer ready and slice off what you need, as you need it. A use helped by the fact these butters are cylindrical.

That same cylindricality (is that even a word?) makes the No19 Béarnaise butter – butter churned in Glastonbury with tarragon leaves, vinegar, lemon juice, bay leaves and Pink Himalayan salt perfect for placing on your well-rested, medium rare, steak. It gently starts to melt on the residual steak heat and the flavour is wonderful as it dribbles across each forkful.

Once upon a time every steakhouse would put a slice of butter on a steak, a slice usually with scalloped edges as I remember. Some people would call that’naff’ now, some people are very wrong,

These two new butters join the already four strong range to bring it up to six, each of which I can personally vouch for as totally and brilliantly buttery.

The classic Sublime No1 Pink Himalayan Salt is a real favourite here.

Perfect for making the classic Parisian snack of crunchy roll, ham, gherkin and loads and loads of butter.And of course there’s always garlic bread! And sweetcorn, which is great with the chimichurri butter!

So many great ways to eat butter, in fact a bad way has yet to be invented.

Brilliant butters. Spread the word.

The full list:

NEW Sublime No19 Béarnaise (90g)

NEW Sublime No5 Garlic & Herb (90g)

Sublime No1 Pink Himalayan Salt (200g)

Sublime No17 Chimichurri (90g)

Sublime No12 Truffle, Parmesan & Black Pepper (90g)

Sublime No6 Garlic, Rosemary & Mint (90g, available seasonally)

Sublime supports independent retailers and producers of quality produce – the new

flavoured butters and all other varieties in the range (RRP: £3.95 for a 90g roll) can be found in butchers, farm shops, fish mongers and delicatessens nationwide.

Some flavours are available online through Farmison and new artisan food website Aequill too.