What's Up With Brown Butter?
What is it, how to make it and my best brown butter recipes 🧈
If you’re into baking you’ve probably already come across brown butter, sometimes referred to as “beurre noisette”. This literally just means nutty butter, aptly named for its toasty, nutty flavour. The flavour comes from cooking the milk solids in the butter, once the liquid evaporates, just the milk solids and fat remain, as it continues to cook the milk solids begin to brown, hence the name. The depth of flavour of your brown butter will depend on how much you cook it, a light golden colour will give a more subtle flavour, a dark brown will have a strong, almost burnt toast flavour, as one of my head chefs once said to me “if it’s brown it’s done, if it’s black it’s f*cked” so make sure you keep an eye on it as it’s cooking! It’s worth noting that because a lot of the liquid evaporates in the browning process, the finished weight of brown butter is significantly less than the original weight of butter, I find on average it loses about 20% of it’s original weight but this will vary depending on the fat content of your butter. Most recipes will take this into account (all of my recipes do) but some people prefer to brown the butter first and then weigh it.
Using brown butter can add a really nice depth of flavour to certain recipes with only a little bit of extra effort. So how do you make it?
Place the amount of butter stated in the recipe in a pan, it can boil up quite a lot so make sure your pan is big enough.
Melt on a medium-high heat.
Once it starts to boil keep an eye on it and stir every so often.
Continue to cook until a foam starts to form on top, once you notice some brown specks in the foam, remove it from the heat, if it’s not quite brown enough you can put it back on but keep a really close eye on it as at this stage it can burn very easily!
Pour into a heatproof bowl/jug, let cool and use as desired!
Salted Honey Brown Butter
This is the perfect recipe if you want to try out making some brown butter but don’t feel like a big baking session! It’s incredibly easy and delicious, you can put it on anything and everything. My partner likes to put a spoonful on his porridge, it’s great on toast and a really nice addition to a cheeseboard.
Ingredients
100g unsalted butter
100g good quality honey
3g/large pinch flaky sea salt
1/2tsp cinnamon (optional)
Method
Make the brown butter as above.
Remove from the heat and transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer.
Mix on a low speed with the paddle attachment until cool and starting to get pale in colour.
Add the honey, salt and cinnamon (if using) and continue to beat until it gets light and fluffy.
If you have any nice silicone moulds you can set it in them or just in a bowl with a drizzle of honey.
Here are a few of my other favourite recipes using brown butter, I’ll update this list as I add more !