photo from: dishnthekitchen.wordpress.com
If you find that your pastries are missing that magical buttery flavour you might want to confirm the quality of your butter. As a general rule of thumb, higher fat butter makes for better pastries.
In a nutshell, tasty, fatty, butter is hard to find in Canada due a government mandate that all Canadian butter be a consistent 80% fat while butter around the world starts at 82%. There's better butters out there, but a 289.5% tariff on all foreign butter ensures no competition in the Canadian market so hobby bakers such as myself are SOL... kinda.
We have a few options. Until recently, the Stirling Creamery butter(84%) was only available in Eastern Canada. You can now find it at select Whole Foods out here in Vancouver. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on some when my Bestie brought some back from Ontario. The Stirling butter was creamy and less likely to crumble and rip bread when spread at room temperature than regular grocery store butter. I treated this butter like the bricks of gold they were and saved them for very special baking projects.
As a local alternative, I sometimes buy small batch cultured butter from The Farmhouse. It tends to be pricey at around $9 for a bar. Loyal Farmhouse fans can make the long drive to Agassiz for a long shot chance it will be in stock. No reservations, just hope it's there when you get there. It takes alot of butter to make milk so the batches are small and scarce. Plus it's amazing so it's in demand.
Luke's General Store in Gastown started carrying Farmhouse butter earlier in the year but I'm not sure how long it'll continue given that its not widely publicized and an odd product.. A lucky find in an unlikely place. I hope they continue to carry it.
Just for ease of access, I stock up on Kerrygold butter from Trader Joes in Bellingham. You can bring up to $20 of milk products worth across the border and I make use of my limit every time I can. Kerrygold butter has a high fat content and is made from the milk of grass-fed cows. It's not as good, imho as Stirling, but it gets the job done and I can buy alot of it. Trader Joes also has a cultured french butter which is also pretty good.
You can read the full Globe and Mail article on why Canadians are living with inferior butter.