 | |
| Alternative names | Buttery, rowie, Aberdeen roll |
|---|---|
| Type | Bread roll |
| Place of origin | Aberdeen, Scotland |
| Main ingredients | Flour, lard, butter or vegetable oil, yeast |
A rowie, also known as a buttery or Aberdeen roll, is a savoury bread roll originating from Aberdeen, Scotland.
Legend has it that the rowie was made for the fishermen sailing from Aberdeen harbour. The theory is that they needed a bread that would not become stale during the two weeks or more that they were at sea. The high fat content meant the bread also provided an immediate energy source. [1]
Rowies are typically made from flour, butter, lard, salt, sugar and yeast. [2] [3] [4] However, concerns have been raised about major commercial producers swapping the traditional butter and lard mixture for palm oil. [5]
Butteries are noted for their flaky texture and buttery taste, similar to that of a croissant, and slight saltiness. They are often toasted and served with jam or butter, golden syrup or plain with tea, although the high fat content makes them extremely hot when toasted. [6] [7] [8]
As the alternative name of Aberdeen roll suggests, butteries are a speciality of Aberdeen but they are common throughout the Northeast of Scotland and are available worldwide. [9]
Articles in the Aberdeen Journal from early in the 19th century bemoan the increased use of lard in place of butter in traditional "butter rolls". [10] In 1917 when restrictions were placed on the sale of bread owing to World War I, butteries were exempt, enabling Aberdeen bakers to continue to produce rowies. The exemption was rescinded a few months later but appeals were made on the grounds that butteries were an intrinsic "part of the food of the working classes in industrial centres." [11] Aberdeen City Food Control Committee continued to challenge the validity of the restriction two years later in February 1919. [12]
In 2006 a buttery was offered for sale on eBay during a fund raising for the Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital; the successful bidder, Enterprise Engineering, paid £620 for it. [13]
Radio and TV presenter Sir Terry Wogan once memorably described eating a buttery as like having a "mouth full of seaweed". [14]
The first ever World Buttery Championships took place on Saturday, 16 June 2018 at the Aberdeen campus of North East of Scotland College.
The competition was organised by Martin Gillespie on behalf of Slow Food Aberdeen City and Shire to celebrate the Traditional Buttery being 'boarded' on the Slow Food Ark of Taste.
10 finalists took part in a live bake-off and the results were judged in a blind taste test with Mark Barnett, of Gold'N'Crispy, New Pitsligo being crowned the winner.
On 11 November 2024 the World Buttery Championship was revived, again at the Aberdeen campus of North East of Scotland College, and this time the competition was split into two categories.
The Retail Baker category was for bakers who sell their products to the public and after a stiff competition Mark Barnett retained his title very closely followed by Iryna Porfilova, of Bakes You Knead, Forres and Shona Jamieson of The Highlander Bakehouse, Ballater.
The Home Bake category provided those who do not sell their products with the opportunity to bake off and find the best home baked buttery. Here the winner was Jane Hay from Oldmeldrum with runners up Coleen Reid from Aberchirder and Stuart Sproul from Nairn.
Organisers, Slow Food Aberdeen City & Shire plan for the World Buttery Championship to return in June 2026.
Puff pastry, also known as pâte feuilletée, is a light, flaky pastry, its base dough composed of wheat flour and water. Butter or other solid fat is then layered into the dough. The dough is repeatedly rolled and folded, rested, re-rolled and folded, encasing solid butter between each resulting layer.
Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread, but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes, cookies, and pieces of bread to their center, typically conducted at elevated temperatures surpassing 300°F. Dry heat cooking imparts a distinctive richness to foods through the processes of caramelization and surface browning. As heat travels through, it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods and more with a firm dry crust and a softer center. Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other. Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.
Pastry refers to a variety of doughs, as well as the sweet and savoury baked goods made from them. These goods are often called pastries as a synecdoche, and the dough may be accordingly called pastry dough for clarity. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
A croissant is a French pastry made from puff pastry in a crescent shape.
A Danish pastry is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the viennoiserie tradition. It is thought that some bakery techniques were brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, and originated the name of this pastry. The Danish recipe is however different from the Viennese one and has since developed into a Danish specialty.
Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavourings.
Quick bread is any bread leavened with a chemical leavening agent rather than a biological one like yeast or sourdough starter. An advantage of quick breads is their ability to be prepared quickly and reliably, without requiring the time-consuming skilled labor and the climate control needed for traditional yeast breads.
Kipferl, kifli, kiflice, or kifle is a traditional yeast bread roll that is rolled and formed into a crescent before baking.
Lardy cake, also known as lardy bread, lardy Johns, dough cake, dripper, and fourses cake, is a traditional spiced bread enriched with lard and found in several southern counties of England, including Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Gloucestershire, each claiming to be the original source. It remains a popular weekend tea cake.
Lard is a semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of a pig. It is distinguished from tallow, a similar product derived from fat of cattle or sheep.
A Franzbrötchen is a small, sweet pastry baked with butter and cinnamon, similar to a cinnamon roll. Sometimes other ingredients are used as well, such as chocolate or raisins. It is a type of pastry commonly found in northern Germany, especially Hamburg, and it is usually served for breakfast, but is also enjoyed along with coffee and cake. As its name indicates, the Franzbrötchen was probably inspired by French pastries. Originally, it could be found only in the region of Hamburg, but now Franzbrötchen are also sold in Bremen, Berlin, and other German cities.
A singing hinny or singin' hinny is a type of bannock, griddle cake or scone, made in the north of England, especially Northumberland and the coal-mining areas of the North East. In Scotland, they are known as fatty cutties.
A torpedo dessert is a buttery, flaky viennoiserie bread roll, filled with pastry cream, named for its well-known torpedo shape. Croissants and other viennoiserie are made of a layered yeast-leavened dough. The dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry.
A babka is a sweet braided bread which originated in the Jewish communities of Poland and Ukraine. It is popular in Israel and in the Jewish diaspora. It is prepared with a yeast-leavened dough that is rolled out and spread with a filling such as chocolate, cinnamon, fruit, or cheese, then rolled up and braided before baking.
