Tik Tok Makes The Delicious Case For Whipping Brown Butter

The world loves brown butter and it's no mystery as to why. It's everything we love about butter, but even better. Butter is made of fat, milk solids, and water, and when melted, has a golden yellow color with streaks and bubbles of white. By going one step further — keeping the melted butter on the heat until it turns a deep amber brown — the milk solids are caramelized and some of the water is cooked off. What remains is a brown butter with a rich and nutty flavor. It adds so much more depth than regular butter to everything from pasta dishes to chocolate chip cookies. 

Speaking of brown butter, although some of the food ideas that come out of TikTok are questionable at best, we have to admit that this one is buttery gold. Margie Nomura of the Desert Island Dishes podcast showed off a batch of whipped brown butter on TikTok, complete with a very sensuous shot of the creamy, light brown creation thickly spread on toasted, rustic bread. Nomura shares that she learned how to make it as a restaurant chef. "We were never allowed to take it off the menu because people loved it so much," she says.

Regular whipped butter is made by beating softened butter to incorporate air, creating a light and creamy consistency. It softens more quickly than solid, stick butter, so it's much easier to spread after only a few minutes out of the fridge. The same is true for whipped brown butter.

To make brown butter, Jessica Gavin explains that butter is melted over medium heat and then stays on the heat until it begins to brown. The butter should be stirred and swirled to get an even color, and watched closely to avoid burning. In her TikTok video, Margie Nomura whisks her bowl of liquid brown butter over ice to bring down the temperature. As it cools and firms, the brown butter becomes creamy, silky, and spreadable.

As with regular whipped butter, whipped brown butter is best used as a condiment, as a finishing touch for dishes like fresh bread, toasted bagels, roasted vegetables, or a sizzling steak. A butter board made with whipped brown butter would be so unique and delicious! And as flavorful and vibrant as herbs are in regular butter, they're even more so when mixed into whipped brown butter. Try it out with your family and friends. As one TikTok user commented on Nomura's post, once they taste it, everyone will think you're "the greatest chef alive."