Ever ruin a perfectly serviceable piece of toast by trying (and failing) to spread a little pat of rock-solid butter? [John Dingley] doesn’t! Not since he created the Butta Melta to cozily snug a single butter serving right up against a warm beverage, softening it just enough to get nice and spreadable. Just insert one of those foil-wrapped pats of butter into the Melta, hang its chin on the edge of your mug, and you’ll have evenly softened butter in no time.
The Butta Melta is intentionally designed with a bit of personality, but also has features we think are worth highlighting. One is the way it’s clearly designed with 3D printing in mind, making it an easy print on just about any machine in no time at all. The second is the presence of the hinge point which really helps the Butta Melta conform to a variety of cup designs, holding the payload as close as possible to the heat regardless of cup shape. A couple of minutes next to a hot beverage is all it takes for the butter to soften enough to become easily spreadable.
You may remember [John] (aka [XenonJohn]) from his experimental self-balancing scooters, or from a documentary he made about domestic ventilator development during COVID. He taught himself video editing and production to make that, and couldn’t resist using those skills to turn a video demo of the Butta Melta into a mock home shopping style advertisement. Watch it below, embedded just under the page break, then print one and save yourself from the tyranny of torn toast.
Well, that’s cute if you’re out in the cold, cold world, but for home, just get yourself a butter bell.
I do wonder if the inevitable migration of butter to the plastic might soften the plastic, or import a rancid dairy smell to it.
Fear not! The butter is wrapped! Amazing, right?
But, I see your worry of perhaps transferring butter from your greasy fingers to this device. No problem! You can “wash” it, in much the same way as you’d clean anything that got dirty.
3D printed items don’t wash properly.
No, usually you have to wash them yourself.
Oh noes!
Actually, they do, but if you are even slightly concerned you could simply print another one. Or maybe don’t have one at all.
No they don’t. It’s already been shown that the 3D printing process creates lots of microscopic crevices and voids that don’t get cleaned with a normal scrub.
Maybe if the part is made out of something you can boil it’s okay. Otherwise it’s best not to mix 3D prints and food.
Define “properly”.
No, define it properly.
No, I said properly.
Again, yes they do. Particularly in this application, where the butter is wrapped.
How about some science on the topic, since that’s supposed to be what we do here.
https://lt728843.wixsite.com/maskrelief/post/the-final-say-in-food-safe-3d-printing
Soap and water are sufficient to clean 3d prints to food-safe and a bleach step gets them to even surgical-safe levels. Alcohol also has low enough surface tension to get into the print lines, without trouble, if you’re really worried.
It’s really easy to repeat ‘things you know’ but it’s really important to occasionally check our knowledge against the science because – science grows and so should we.
Sorry I hadn’t seen your reply. At least I added another link for easier reading :)
This old chestnut again? It’s been reported on on this exact website before, but here we go again:
Good news, you don’t have to worry about it:
Research Paper
Blog post by lead author in easier language
butter survives just find on the counter and seldom goes bad before you finish the stick (at least in a 2-person household). just do remember to clean the butter dish periodically rather than just adding a new stick each time the old one runs low.
Gross
Why?
That very much depends where you live, and to what extent you heat or cool your living space. In the tropics, I can tell you butter does not survive “just fine” on the counter.
This may be a British phenomenon. It is common for butter to be given to you at breakfast in hotels like this. It is wrapped in foil, a standard size throughout the country and straight from the fridge. This may be a food health and safety requirement or so you cannot claim for food poisoning, an industry in itself. Either way, it just does not spread well and the better quality the butter i.e. no oils added to make it spreadable, the more of a problem this is. The idea is that you leave the wrapper on while it is in the Butta Melta……see video. The next video, following another British tradition will be called, Butta Melta II, Attack of the Scones. Scones crumble to dust if you try to spread hard butter on them.
“What is my purpose?”
“You melt butter.”
Oh. My. God.
“here i am, the brain the size of a universe..”
what works really well and requires on the heat of the toast is a very thin slice of butter, several if you like a well buttered toast. works withou anything “extra”
Exactly! +1
You only need stable hand. Maybe some stainless steel slicer gadget can be the lazy solution.
An ostehøvel might be the appropriate tool for the job
Correction: not for the small portion packets of course.
This is cute but since they’re single-serving butter packets, aren’t those mostly going to be left out at room temperature most of the time anyway?
Restaurants usually keep them refrigerated, so they are cold and hard when they arrive at the table. My solution is to put them in my pocket for a minute, or on top of hot food works also. (Just don’t open them first, of course)
No. They’re kept in the fridge until needed. If you leave them out too long they go bad. If you leave them out for the right length of time they are soft for spreading. Unless the room temperature is too cold. Which is obvious. To most people.
I leave butter out all the time in a butter dish, never goes bad.
Clearly you don’t leave it out too long.
Maybe in Alaska…
Is room temp different in Alaska?
At the breakfast bar at the hotel where I stayed not too long ago, the butter packets were kept in a container with thick walls that seemed to keep the contents cool.
Having just come back from Bali, the Butta Melta would have been a welcome addition at breakfast. Firing up the printer right now…
There’s an even simpler way that my honey showed me. She simply picked up the cold, wrapped butter pat and kneaded it for a minute with her fingers until soft. Easy peasey.
We learned as kids that at fancy restaurants they bring that little foil cube of butter out cold and rock hard.
So what you do is warm it up in your grubby hand till it’s good and gooey. Then you take your cloth napkin which is in your lap of course and carefully plop the butter in it. After that you sort of push it down between your knees and with a quick jerk of the sides of the napkin you can launch the butter vertically with surprising velocity and stick them to the ceiling rather quietly. It’s a hoot try it at your next time you’re at a Michelin star restaurant they probably think it’s fun too!
A youtube of your technique would be highly entertaining.
We did this in middle school.
Where they were too lazy to remove them, so the first hot day of the spring many rancid butter pats were falling all over the cafeteria.
Was gross, the smart move was brown bagging it and eating on the playgrounds that first hot week.
Such a strange concept. I got a butter bell and I buy butter from the farm store and just put it in there. It can easily stay in there for over a month on the counter. In the winter it can probably live there for several months as my house cools to 17c/62f.
I’ve never seen these single servings either. I’ve been to the US on holiday and didn’t see those in restaurants either.
Well that’s an English breakfast, and the narrator of the video is English. I’d hazard to guess that the video is set in England.
haha i was interested in this one because i’m not keen on the patience involved in setting the butter on the hot toast and waiting for it to soften from being in contact with something hot
so i was disappointed when i found out what it was :)
It’s worse than you think! [XenonJohn] was clearly enjoying an English Breakfast. The toast is cold. Stone cold.
mmm. leachy plasticizers. Maybe a hint of carbon nano fibers. over time, a dollop of nice bacteria biofilm.
The butter is wrapped. But carry on being edgy.
You have clearly never handled those “wrapped butters”.
Did you know they arent sealed? Did you know they arent packaged frozen? Did you know that small bits of butter are often outside the edges of the folds? And where do you think butter that is on the outside goes? I worked at a breakfast restaurant. Youre the one trying to he edgy with your zero experience.
I have, in fact, encountered these little packs of butter. Handled them, no less.
Protip, just use a vegetable peeler on the cold butter, who has single serving butter at home?
What gives you the impression that this is at home?
Still doesn’t beat the original:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-1gGiD4SmEU&t=1022s&pp=2AH-B5ACAQ%3D%3D
Ah yes, an extra thing to carry that will make your coffee cup and your pocket oily. Brilliant.
Those pads are not sealed. Its a pad of butter thats wrapped. What happens to butter that heats up? What happens to a liquid that is wrapped in foil paper and then suspended vertically? What if the person who got your coffee knew to heat the mug before adding the coffee? What if you forget about the butter on the side of the hot mug?
No matter what Andrew thinks:
This is a dumb solution. Just put the butter pad on your plate under the toast.
Yes, because that cold English toast is going to soften the butter so quickly.
It’s a “pat” of butter.
You can uh. Just hold the butter for 30 seconds. I mean.. Maybe you guys have really cold hands, I guess?
This looks like a fun project. I love it!
Man, I shouldn’t have watched this before breakfast – I’d kill for a Full English right about now