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| Clarifying Butter |
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| There's a reason why a recipe may specifically call for clarified and not melted butter. Take for example, when you're making a food, or a dessert, using filo pastry dough. You can melt the butter, allow the milky residue to settle, scoop or pour out the fat and then discard the residue. This, however, doesn't always work out well and you may still have traces of milk in the fat, which will leave tiny black specks on the baked filo dough that aren't appealing. You can, instead, take one additional step to clarify melted butter, which isn't difficult to do; however, it does require your constant attention and patience. To clarify 1/2 - 1 pound of butter (1 - 2 cups) you will need: |
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Note: I use a small or medium sized, regular stainless steel pot. I don't use a non-stick pot, because I'm not preventing things from sticking. I just make sure that the pot will be large enough to contain the melted butter and its rising foam. The melted butter should not fill up the pot more than halfway; otherwise, the butter will boilover during the process and the cleanup won't be pleasant. I use plain paper coffee filters (white or brown) to filtre out the fine particles. Paper towels, or facial tissues, leave behind lint and also tear up easily. Muslim and cheese cloth, in addition, tend to have large gaps that don't capture the fine particles as well, and thus defeat the purpose of this technique. I use a large sieve, because small sieves can't hold as much melted butter as larger ones and small sieves take too long to filtre the butter. I keep a ceramic bowl, at my side, just in case I need to stop everything, rather than removing the hot pot away from the heat, which can continue to cook and burn the butter (blacken). If the butter turns black, then the butter is useless. When I'm ready to resume, I simply transfer the butter back into the pot and continue the process. I use a heat resistant surface, such as a hot plate, to cool down my hot pot. I don't place the hot pot immediately into the sink, because the pot can leave burn marks on the surface of the sink; or, it may melt any rubber sink mats. Respectively, I don't run cold water into the pot, or place the pot into the sink water, because this will warp the pot, if repeated over time. When the pot has cooled down, only then do I fill it up with hot tap water and a bit of dishwashing detergent to soak. |
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How: Set the coffee filter into the sieve and then set the sieve over the measuring cup. Along with this, keep to the side the heat resistant surface (hot plate), soup bowl and teaspoon. Cut the cold butter into 1inch cubes, or so, and then place them into the pot. Melt the butter over high heat, stirring frequently using a spoon, or a knife, to prevent the melted butter from burning. |
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| Butter cut into cubes and set in pot to melt. |
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| When the butter begins to boil, it will begin to foam and make a deep sizzling sound. Swirl the butter occasionally by raising and lowering the handle of the pot, 1 - 2 inches away from the burner, keeping the side of the pot, opposite of the handle, in contact with the burner to avoid scorching. |
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| Butter has melted and starts to foam and sizzle. |
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| As you continue to boil the butter, the foam will subside. The tiny bubbles will turn into larger translucent hexagonal bubbles and then a thin, but dull film will form. |
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| Foam has decreased; large bubbles have formed and a skin has developed. |
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| Continue cooking and swirling the butter on high heat until the large bubbles turn into a fine foam with tiny shiny bubbles; by then, the sizzling sound will have stopped. Immediately pour enough of the foaming butter into the filtre. |
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| Large bubbles have turned into shiny tiny bubbles and sizzling has stopped. |
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| Carefully stir the accumulated gritty debris in the filtre to prevent clogging; avoid scraping and tearing the filtre. Repeat with the remaining melted butter in the same manner. The butter will slightly congeal as it passes through the filtre; therefore, you may have to use the back of a teaspoon to push the melted butter through the filtre, which only takes a minute or two to do. |
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| As butter filtres, it may thicken, so use a spoon to push it through the filtre. | ||||||||||
| When you've finished pouring in all of the melted butter into the sieve, set the pot aside on a heat resistant surface. A brown gritty film will have developed inside the bottom of the pot and this is to be expected; a little bit of soaking in hot tap water will easily remove it. Remove the sieve and discard the filtre with the collected debris. Use the clarified butter as indicated in your recipe, or cool it to room temperature and then store it in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator or freezer. |
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| Butter has been clarified. |
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