Brown Butter Old Fashioned (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you don't brown butter enough? ›

Under-browned butter won't carry as much flavor, and won't bring that lovely nuttiness to your bake. It will look lighter as you'll see in the photo below. Over-browned butter will taste bitter or even burnt, and be darker brown in color, as you can see in the photo below.

Cover with a lid and shake to disperse the butter through the bourbon. Place in the fridge to solidify the butter and the flavour to infuse for a minimum of 3 hours up to 3 days.

Watch butter closely. The color will progress from a bright yellow to a golden tan, then quickly to a deep golden brown. When you smell a nutty aroma, butter is deep golden brown and browned milk solids appear in bottom of pan, take pan off the heat. Immediately transfer browned butter to heat-proof bowl.

This will help you ensure you're getting all the butter–and that it cooks evenly. Don't stop stirring and don't walk away: browned butter is kind of like making caramel, the second you walk away is the second everything changes and you end up with a burned mess. It's best to just stay put and keep stirring.

Brown butter adds rich nutty and caramel notes to your baked good. It truly turns up the flavor of most any recipe and is a great little trick to keep in your back pocket when you want to impress with your baking.

Too dark, and it may start to taste (and look) burnt. Your nose will be the first to tell you are browning your butter.

Once you're happy with the level of browning, pour the butter—browned milk solids and all—into a heatproof bowl and stir it for one or two minutes to cool it down.

Add 1 tablespoon (14g) water (or other liquid) for every 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons, 113g) of butter used. Failing to add this extra liquid may yield a somewhat greasy final result, especially in something like chocolate chip cookies. For the biggest bang, use brown butter in butter-forward baked goods.

Brown specks in brown butter are toasted milk solids. They're actually where most of the flavor comes from, so make sure you scrape those out of the pan along with the liquid butter. Don't strain out the specks. Trust me, you want it all in your recipe!

You can use either salted or unsalted. We like using unsalted butter, especially for baking, because you can control the quantity of salt in your dish.

How much butter is lost when browning? ›

During the process of browning, much of the water evaporates from the butter. So if you start out with 1 cup of butter, you'll be left with just a hair over 3/4 cup of butter. You'll lose a couple tablespoons in the process. This is the evaporating effect.

During the process of browning, much of the water evaporates from the butter. So if you start out with 1 cup of butter, you'll be left with just a hair over 3/4 cup of butter. You'll lose a couple tablespoons in the process. This is the evaporating effect.

Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly. You should use unsalted butter to control the salt content, but if you only have salted on hand, reduce the amount of added salt accordingly. Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown.

Yes, you can swap browned butter for regular butter, but keep in mind it's not a 1:1 swap. During the process of browning butter, water evaporates from the butter, which leads to a 10 to 20 percent total moisture loss.