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1
To make this easy to explain, I'm using 70 g of butter to make the browned butter.
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2
The timing is critical for this, so let's do some prep work first
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3
Cut the butter up into pieces.
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4
Have a fine-meshed sieve or strainer set on a heatproof bowl lined with paper towels.
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5
Use a pan or frying pan that you are confident won't burn or stick.
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6
Add the butter and melt the butter over low heat.
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7
Tip: If you are melting more than 100 g of butter, use a pan with high sides.
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8
Never put the butter in the pan in one big lump - cut it up into smaller pieces so that it melts easily.
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9
When the butter has melted, turn the heat up to medium-high.
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The butter will have large bubbles at first.
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If you keep looking at the butter, the bubbles will become smaller, and the level of the butter will start to rise.
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It'll be ready very soon.
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Keep watching the pan, and you'll see that it starts to brown right away.
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14
Turn the heat off once the butter starts to brown.
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Don't leave the butter in the hot pan.
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Immediately pour it into the lined sieve you made ready in Step 2, and strain it through.
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Make sure to strain off the bitter bits.
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If you look at the butter in a clear bowl, properly strained browned butter is really beautiful.
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And it smells indescribably wonderful.
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The color is like this.
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It's ok if it's too pale, but if the butter is too dark, it will have an acrid fragrance and flavor that will get transferred to the batter of whatever you're making.
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If it's your first time making browned butter, you may want to strainig it off a bit early.
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Warning: If you leave the butter in the hot pan (Step 7), it will continue browning.
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So take it out and strain it immediately, being careful not to burn yourself.
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Tip: If you're afraid of straining the hot butter right away, you can lower the temperature of the butter by pressing the bottom of the frying pan on a cold moistened kitchen towel first.
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26
I brown a restaurant size 450 g block of unsalted cultured butter at a time and froze it.
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27
I highly recommend this!
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!
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29
To brown 450 g of butter, a wok is just the right size.
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30
If you use a smaller pan, the butter may spill out, so be careful.
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As long as you have this browned butter made, you can cream it and use it instead of regular butter when making poundcake.
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32
Baked goods made with browned butter taste so much better than ones made with plain melted butter.
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However, there are some drawbacks... For one thing, when you brown butter the volume decreases to 70%, so it ends up being expensive.
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The biggest drawback is that when you brown butter it inevitably splits, so the texture of your cakes are much more likely to become dense.
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Therefore, your cakes may not be light and fluffy with a fine, smooth texture.
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Although the possibility of this occuring is small, it does happen sometimes.
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Generally you will barely notice this, but if you compare a cake made with regular melted butter vs. brown butter side by side, you may taste a slight difference.
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Therefore, I recommend making browned butter in advance and combining it with regular melted butter.
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39
Use browned butter for the taste and fragrance, and regular butter for its superior chemical reaction when baking.
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40
If you can master this you'll get the best results.
