Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
There are those dark days when you not only forgot to refill the butter bell, but you also forgot to move butter from the freezer to the fridge. Frozen butter is nearly impenetrable with a knife, and pressing the slippery brick of fat against a cheese grater or veggie peeler begs for a first aid kit. Surprisingly, a fruit zester, or microplane, which is essentially a cheese grater on a smaller, and sharper scale, works well with frozen butter. The tiny, grating edges of the zester are extremely sharp, but lifted just enough to achieve shallow cuts. Since you can’t dig deeply into frozen butter anyway, the grater will shave hundreds of saw dust-fine pieces onto your toast. The toast’s heat will melt those bits in no time.
