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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at JMU chapter.

I am someone who loves to bake. I have a few staple recipes in my book, but I also love to play around with those recipes and try new ones! This summer, I tried an intriguing treat at a cute café downtown: a brown butter blondie. It was amazing and one of the best things I’ve ever tried. It also led me to wonder what brown butter was and how I could make it.

What is brown butter?

Brown butter is butter that has been cooked down a bit on the stove. This gives it a distinctive brown color and a nutty, butterscotch-like flavor. It gives desserts more depth of flavor and pairs well with a vanilla, caramel, or nut-based dessert (but I am in full support of using it for almost everything!). 

Recently, I’ve made my own brown butter blondies, chocolate chip cookies with brown butter, and salted caramel cheesecake bars with a brown butter crust.

How to make brown butter

The trick to making brown butter is simply melting butter in a pan until it browns. It sounds simple enough and it really is, but there are a few tricks you should know to make sure it turns out perfect!

When you put the butter in the pan, make sure the heat is at a medium level. If it is too high, the butter may brown before it is fully melted, leaving you with a weird mix of unmelted and burnt butter. Making sure the heat is right is one of the most important things to do in this process! Next, once you’ve added the butter to the pan, be sure to mix it constantly. It doesn’t take long, but it can bubble over or burn if you aren’t mixing it. Finally, make sure you are watching it. It takes 2-5 minutes to brown (depending on how much butter you are working with), but the browning happens quickly. Almost instantly, the entire pan will become brown and perfect, so make sure you’re paying close attention for that moment!

It’s almost time for the holiday season, which means lots and lots of baking. Try to swap out the butter in one of your recipes for brown butter! I promise it’ll be worth it.

Jillian is a sophomore Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communications major with minors in Family and Legal Studies! In her free time she likes to read, bake, and spend time with friends!