Making Truffle Butter from Farmer's Market Truffles

A while ago, I was browsing the Farmer's market like usual and I came upon the mushroom stand with this sign:

Truffles! I always wanted to cook with truffles, make truffle pasta, truffle butter and all that. And for $5? That seemed almost too cheap, truffles are known for being outrageously expensive, right?

So anyway, I bought a few truffles, brought them home and... figured I would leave them in the brown bag in the fridge for a few days or maybe a week like the girl at the mushroom stand suggested, so they would fully develop in flavor. Well, you know what the problem is when you buy something, excited to use it, and then you have to wait? Well, it kind of goes to the backburner, and I, hrm... forgot about them.

Fast forward two (or was it three?) weeks later and the truffles are looking admittedly sad in that brown bag in the fridge. I panic, and out go all my wonderful ideas about making truffle scented oil (which doesn't seem that easy to do anyway, I've realized after some research!), creamy pasta with thin shavings etc.. Enter: butter. I mean, how could you possibly go wrong with butter? So, I grated the truffles.

Softened the butter. 

Mixed. Not really that difficult, is it?

I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put in the fridge and relaxed a little, knowing at least the truffles wouldn't go to waste, at least they would be submerged in buttter!

The next day, family was coming over. I baked a no-knead bread, took some radishes out of the garden and took out my butter.

Spread on freshly baked bread with crispy addition of a garden fresh radish slice, it wasn't bad. Not at all.

It was creamy, slightly musty and it had a nice overall flavor and underlying tone. But... it didn't quite have the flavor explosion I had hoped for. I didn't have this: "wow - what have I missed out on up till this point" feeling. It was good, but it wasn't wonderful. 

Now I'm wondering why. Are these Oregon truffles not up to par? I mean they definitely were cheap, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. Did I keep them in the fridge too long? I can't imagine I served them the wrongly: grated in butter on fresh bread?

Well, this definitely made for a nice appetizer, and it was definitely worth the $5. But next time I would like more out of it. However, I'm not looking to order one little truffle for $100 either! So maybe, next time, I'll slice the truffles thinly on warm bread with butter flavored with truffle oil? That, I'm hoping should provide that umph and restore my dreams of truffles being an explosion of musty, earthy goodness...