How to Brown Butter (and Know When to Stop)

Brown butter is just butter cooked past melting, until the water boils off and the milk solids toast. It takes five minutes and turns a plain ingredient into one that tastes of caramel and hazelnuts.

What you need

• Unsalted butter. You can control the salt later, and salted butter foams more, which makes it harder to see.
• A light-coloured pan. Stainless steel lets you watch the colour change. In a dark nonstick pan you are cooking blind.
• A heatproof bowl ready beside the stove, so you can stop the cooking instantly.

The four stages

1. Melting. The butter melts and looks clear yellow.
2. Foaming. The water boils off loudly and the butter foams and spits. Keep swirling.
3. Quiet. The sizzling slows down and the foam settles. Now watch closely.
4. Browned. Small specks at the bottom turn golden, then hazelnut brown, and it smells nutty. Pour it out immediately.

Common mistakes

• Walking away. The gap between brown and burnt is about 30 seconds.
• Leaving it in the pan. The hot pan keeps cooking it. Pour it into the bowl, scraping in every brown speck, because that is where the flavour is.
• Using it hot in cookie dough. Let it cool until just warm, or it will melt the sugar and make the cookies spread.

Storing brown butter

Cool, cover and refrigerate for up to two weeks. It solidifies into a speckled, toffee-coloured butter you can use anywhere you would use regular butter.