IngredientsDairy & fat
Butter
Butter is about four fifths fat; the rest is water and milk protein. The water makes steam in the oven, the protein browns.
In a dough the fat coats the flour and keeps the gluten strands short. That is what makes the crumb soft and tender instead of chewy.
Brezelpretzel
Pretzel dough carries only about three percent butter, and that three percent decides between a Bavarian and a Swabian pretzel.
Leave it out and the arms go dry and the belly chewy. Put more in and you lose the bite.
In Mexikoin Mexico
Mantequilla sin sal is in every supermarket, usually right next to the salted kind. The pack says sin sal.
Keep it in the fridge. In Nayarit butter goes soft on the counter within the hour, and soft butter can no longer be rubbed into flour.
Vorsichtwatch out
Mantequilla con sal brings its own salt. In a cake or a bread dough you taste the shift, and you cannot subtract it afterwards.
Margarina is vegetable fat. It bakes much the same but tastes different, and in a Butterkuchen or a Butterbrezel it removes the one thing they are named after.