Every year since the early 2000s, I have made multiple batches of English toffee to give away during the holidays. For only the second time ever in this time span I encountered total toffee failure: the emulsion split, leaving me with a grainy caramel sitting in pools of fat. I chalked up the outcome to rushing the process and/or stirring too vigorously. However, the second batch was nearly as bad as the first, despite meticulously following the correct procedures.

I posted about this mishap in a private Facebook culinary group and one of the members suggested that the butter was the source of my toffee woes. The member, who lives in Canada, said that dairy farmers there recently started adding palm oil and/or palm oil industry byproducts to their cattle feed, a practice that has become increasingly common in dairy growing regions over the past decade. According to critics, this practice has resulted in detrimental changes to the butter's characteristics. For instance, many consumers complained that the butter remained hard at room temperature.

Based on this feedback, I searched for additional complaints about the behavior of butter in cooking or baking and ran across a Reddit subforum titled Wtf is happening with butter, one of several subforums dealing with the subject. It seems that Costco members in the US recently noticed that their baked goods didn't turn out the way they had in the past and blamed changes in Kirkland brand (Costco's house brand) butter. Consumers reported that cookies spread too much, buttercream split, and pie crust was crumbly. The alleged issues with the Kirkland product point to an increase in the amount of water in the butter. Many people reported that once they switched to a different brand such as Land O'Lakes or Challenge, their baking problems disappeared. One Redditor said they started making their own butter from heavy cream to ensure better product consistency.

I often use Aldi butter in my everyday baking because previously I could discern no difference between that and Land O'Lakes or similar supermarket brands. I did notice a difference in premium butters such as a hyper-local brand, Hope Creamery Butter, which is noticeably creamier and tastier, but at almost $12.00 USD per pound, I save it for baked goods where butter is the star of the show, like puff pastry. When other ingredients or flavors are predominant, like chocolate in brownies, the quality of the butter is not paramount so I've been content with the store brand.

Recently, however, it seemed like the Aldi butter melted weirdly and felt greasier - more like shortening than butter. At first I shrugged off these observations, thinking that I just overlooked these characteristics before. But the more I used the butter, the more I felt that something was amiss. Even before the toffee disaster it seemed like my cookies and pie crusts were not turning out right. I thought I was just in a baking slump and needed to get my mojo back. But maybe it's not me, it's the butter. However, Redditors in the subforum complaining about Costco butter said they were not having issues with Aldi butter. Has anyone else noticed problems with the butter they've been using? Or am I really just in a baking slump?