Foolproof and Easy Browned Butter

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   To make this easy to explain, I'm using 70 g of butter to make the browned butter.

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   The timing is critical for this, so let's do some prep work first

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   Cut the butter up into pieces.

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   Have a fine-meshed sieve or strainer set on a heatproof bowl lined with paper towels.

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   Use a pan or frying pan that you are confident won't burn or stick.

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   Add the butter and melt the butter over low heat.

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   Tip: If you are melting more than 100 g of butter, use a pan with high sides.

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   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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   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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    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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    I brown a restaurant size 450 g block of unsalted cultured butter at a time and froze it.

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    I highly recommend this!

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    !

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    To brown 450 g of butter, a wok is just the right size.

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    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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    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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    Use browned butter for the taste and fragrance, and regular butter for its superior chemical reaction when baking.

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    If you can master this you'll get the best results.

* Per serving · 4 servings · Values may vary.

No additional tips available.