Viral butter board trend is perfect for smeared condiments, plus a unique tip to soften butter

For Justine Doiron, creating food content is quite literally her bread and butter, and her latest creation has churned up a new viral trend on social media.

Butter boards are spreading across feeds from TikTok to Instagram thanks to the full-time Brooklyn-based recipe developer and blogger's smooth camera work and creative condiment use.

Doiron cited chef Josh McFadden as the initial creator of the now-viral technique and set some lofty goals for the glammed-up bread accompaniment.

"I want to make them the next charcuterie board," she said in an Instagram reel showing off her version with softened butter, flaky salt, lemon zest, herbs and edible flowers.

In a corresponding blog post, Doiron wrote that the butter board "is just a fun way to have a new appetizer or starter on your table" adding that "it’s way more affordable than a charcuterie board" and "comes out like a show stopper."

Doiron uses Kerrygold butter as the base ingredient in her video and recently documented a trip to Ireland hosted by the brand, whose Irish grass-fed butter is beloved by professional chefs, bakers and home cooks alike.

Doiron's video, which has racked up nearly 180K likes on Instagram and more than 8 million views on TikTok to date, has since spawned hundreds of other iterations from users on the platforms.

Some content creators like Rosalynn Daniels have offered helpful tips like adding a layer of parchment before spreading the butter layer to make clean up even easier.

Sarah Fennel, the blogger behind the popular account Broma Bakery, hopped on trend to lend her best baking knowledge for actually softening the butter.

"If you're making a butter board, you need to have room temperature butter. So here's how I perfectly soften my butter for a butter board," she said in a video, showing a stick of salted butter (still in its wrapper) snugly fit between her body and high-waist leggings. "Every few minutes, turn and in about 15 minutes it will be perfectly softened."

Like so many instant-hit food trends, the butter board works because it serves as a launching point for people to get creative -- much like the four-quadrant folded wrap hack of 2021.

Recipe creator and cookbook author Nicole Keshishian Modic, known as @KaleJunkie on Instagram, shared a plant-based butter board with "GMA" that she tops with figs, nectarines, flaky salt, Marcona almonds and honey.

Other inspired posts have utilized non-butter spreadable condiments from cream cheese to stracciatella as the key ingredient.

While we're not sure if butter will ever truly usurp charcuterie, it's a fun new trend that people are clearly getting on board with.