Salva Mubarak Senior Features Writer

Charcuterie and cheese board enthusiasts, prepare yourselves. There’s a new food trend in town that’s threatening to take over the place of the numero uno in the ‘food boards’ category. It’s delicious, easier to put together, and is less expensive too. It’s the versatile butter board!

The trend that’s slowly taking over the Internet has made its way from a 2017 cookbook to present-day TikTok and has now spread across the Internet as all the good food trends do.

Brooklyn-based chef Justine Doiron shared a video on Instagram and TikTok where she showed her followers how she created a fun new appetiser or starter using just some bread and butter (and a large wooden board).

Doiron credited Chef Joshua McFadden, and his cookbook Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables, for coming up with the idea of a butter board.

McFadden claims that he’s been making butter boards for over a decade for dinners with his friends and family. According to him, it’s the perfect appetiser and gives you the opportunity to present butter in fun and interesting ways.

How to make your own butter board

Making a butter board is as simple as spreading a generous quantity of the butter of your choice to a large wooden board and presenting it with a selection of warm, crusty bread. Doiron, however, suggests a few guidelines to follow anytime you set out to make a butter board for yourself.

One of the most important things to remember is that the butter needs to be softened, but not melty. The consistency she recommends is that of peanut butter. You can do this by mixing butter in a bowl before spreading it on the board.

After spreading butter on the board, season it liberally with flakey salt (for texture and flavour) and citrus zest (to add more depth to the flavour). McFadden suggests adding a variety of herbs or grains as toppings to make the butter board more interesting. You can go for an assortment of vegetables or toasted nuts too, depending on your flavour preferences. Make sure that the toppings are scoopable with a piece of bread.

Doiron also suggests adding a drizzle of honey on top of the finished butter board to tie everything together sweetly, literally! She has also listed a bunch of recipes that you can try for your own butter boards on her website.

Since the trend has gone viral on the Internet, many people have come up with their own variations of the butter board and some have even come up with new food board ideas like the ‘cream cheese board’ or the ‘goat cheese board’.

So, are you going to be serving a butter board at your next dinner party?