Chef Lynn Crawford and her team put on quite a spread this week at Ruby WatchCo in downtown TO in honour of Stirling Creamery butter, churned in Stirling, Ontario.

The evening began with spiced rum cocktails rimmed with brown butter and coarse sugar, followed by shrimp poached in butter, hush puppies dabbed in honey butter, pound cake fried in butter and chocolate cupcakes decorated with fluffy buttercream.

Amid all this impossibly rich deliciousness, one chic little appetizer stole the show. It consisted of a paper-thin circle of valentine radish, its heart a vibrant fuschia pink, topped with a slice of Stirling’s new Euro-style 84% Reserve. Ruby’s chefs finished the dainty canapé, a classic French combination, with a touch of rosemary honey, teensy circles of icicle radish and, the pièce de résistance, a few flakes of Maldon sea salt.

Stirling’s master butter man Chet Blair said the lightly-salted 84 (regular Canadian butter contains 80% butterfat) starts with superb cream and contains less water than regular butter, giving it a dense, creamy texture and more pronounced dairy flavour. It’s especially lovely in shortbread cookies.

Restaurants already know Stirling’s famous butter balls.

Sales & marketing director Greg Nogler says Stirling is determined to show Canadians that butter doesn’t have to be boring.

With bricks of nutty, silky whey cheese, made from the liquid left over from cheese-making, goat’s-milk butter and new lemon pepper tarragon butter, ideal on fish and chicken, there’s no chance of that.

Visit www.stirlingcreamery.com