How to make perfect beurre noisette
See those deep golden granules, rather like toasted breadcrumbs, sitting at the bottom of the pan? That’s your sign of doneness!
Beurre noisette, literally ‘hazelnut butter’ (also known as brown butter), is one of the foundation preparations of classical French cuisine. I had my first encounter while staging with multi-award winning pâtissier and chocolatier, William Curley: in his legendary matcha financiers. I’ve been besotted ever since.
Simply butter cooked till it’s gloriously sweet and hazelnutty, beurre noisette fills the air with the most beguiling, heady perfume that really is quite intoxicating. The equally glorious flavour – rich, nutty, sweet, almost fudge-like – adds a luxurious, gourmet touch to all it alights upon. Used in both sweet and savoury dishes, once you’ve mastered the technique, you’ll be looking for opportunities to use it everywhere in your cooking!
Given how ridiculously good it tastes, beurre noisette is ridiculously quick and easy to make:
Melt butter over a gentle heat until the milk solids separate out from the butterfat
Keep going until they turn a roasty toasty golden colour, signifying the point of readiness
Yank the pan off the heat and plunge it into cold water to arrest cooking.
If you have a close look at the photo above, you’ll see what you’re aiming for: those deep golden granules, rather like toasted breadcrumbs, sitting at the bottom of the pan. They’re your sign of doneness. The only problem? They’re completely obscured from view by the thick cloud of foam produced in the process!
In the method below, I therefore guide you through the changes by scent and feel as well as sight. Once you’ve made beurre noisette a couple of times, you’ll immediately recognise the exact moment of doneness. Meantime, follow these easy steps to guarantee perfect results every time.
Thinking of optimising your health with your diet?
What’s great about it
Grass-fed dairy products have a better omega-6:3 ratio than their conventional counterparts.
Uncooked cultured butter contains probiotics (live microorganisms that confer a health benefit on the host[1]), one of the reasons I recommend upgrading to cultured butter besides its incredible flavour, see Why You Should Upgrade to Cultured Butter. We’re cooking them out here, but several probiotic cultures have been shown to have a benefit in both their live and pasteurised/heat-inactivated forms, so it is possible they may still carry some benefit.[2]
Butter is high in saturated fat, but can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a generally healthy diet that isn’t high in other sources of saturated fat (including meat and dairy products, coconut products, palm oil, cacao butter, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, and pastries). A portion of butter (5g/1 teaspoon) contains 2.6g of saturated fat,[3] 13% of a woman's maximum recommended intake of saturated fat per day (no more than 20g) and 9% of a man's (no more than 30g).[4]
How many of your ≥5-A-Day: 0 per serving
Plant points: 0
Time
Prep: 2 minutes
Cooking: 3-4 minutes
Ingredients
Grass-fed butter, fridge-cold, diced (personally, I like to use salted as that brings out the sweetness even more)
Use whatever quantity you wish or is called for by the recipe
Method
Select a very small or small pan; the smallest you have. If you don’t have a small pan, double or treble the quantity of butter and keep what’s leftover – you won’t have any problems using it!
Also, use a pan with a light-coloured base so that you can keep track of the colour of the butter while it’s cooking, i.e. plain stainless steel or ceramic rather than non-stick, which tend to be black or dark grey.
Before you begin cooking the butter – and this is absolutely essential to avoid overcooking – fill the kitchen sink with an inch or two of cold water. Just enough to come about halfway up the sides of the pan, which will rapidly cool the contents; not so much that it will spill over the brim of the pan into the contents!
Place the diced butter in the pan.
Next, we’re going to cook the butter until it turns a nut-brown colour and the milk solids have separated out and formed toasty-brown granules at the bottom of the pan. As the butter approaches readiness, a fine foam will rise up in the pan, obscuring the colour of both the liquid butter and granules. So, in the next few steps, I’m going to guide you through the changes by scent and feel as well as sight.
First of all, select a heat-proof spatula or a wooden spoon (I use my trusty Colourworks Silicone Mini Food Scraper). Stirring the butter throughout will not only ensure even cooking, but will allow you to feel the formation of the granules.
Place the pan on a low-medium heat, let the butter melt then start stirring, keeping an unwavering eye on the pan. The colour of the liquid (the butterfat) will progress from lemony-yellow to light golden and, finally, to a deep golden-brown (although you won’t be able to see this final stage due to all the foam).
As the butter begins to change colour, it will also start to foam and you’ll begin to feel a slight graininess at the bottom of the pan. At first, the foam will be made up of big bubbles, a bit like those in a bubble bath.
Keep stirring, keep looking and you’ll notice the foam changing. The bubbles will get progressively smaller and finer, more dense and creamy, rather like the frothed milk on top of a cappuccino. At this point, you may also notice the granules begin to change under your hand – they’ll start to feel bigger and courser, as though there is sand at the bottom of the pan.
Keep watching very carefully as we’re getting very close to the point of readiness now. Next, the super-fine froth will very quickly start to rise up the sides of the pan. Once this happens, we’re just seconds away from being done.
At this point, try to see the colour of the granules at the bottom of the pan, parting the foam with the spatula/spoon as you stir. The beurre noisette is ready when they’re a deep-golden colour, like toasted breadcrumbs (see the pic below). The smell is another giveaway – when ready, the butter will release a powerful wave of scent, a glorious hazelnutty aroma that’s so intense it will hit you almost like a physical force.
The colour of a perfect beurre noisette, after the foam has subsided. Note the golden colour of the granules at the bottom.
11. Of course, you won’t have this good a view as the butter will still be very foamy, but if you get a glimpse and the granules look this colour, take the pan off the heat and immediately plunge it into the prefilled sink of cold water. This step immediately arrests cooking and prevents the butter progressing from gorgeously toasty to simply burnt.
12. Alternatively, if you can’t see a thing, take the pan off the heat and keep stirring until the foam subsides enough to get a view. If the granules look like they do in the above picture – deep golden toasted breadcrumbs – plunge the pan in the cold water as above. If they’re not quite there yet, return the pan to the heat.
13. When you first start making beurre noisette, if you’re unsure whether or not it’s ready, it’s best to err on the side of caution/underdone and go for a plunge in the sink. The bubbles will subside as soon as the pan is placed in cold water giving you a clear view. If the colour is too pale, you can always put the pan back on the heat, but if the granules are blackened you’ll have to start over again!
14. Allow the pan to cool in the water for a couple of minutes, then set aside on the work surface. Don’t leave it in the water or the noisette will solidify – not a disaster, but you will need to reheat to liquid consistency to enable pouring.
15. Beurre noisette will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Simple reheat gently to liquify or use in its solid form as you would butter.
Recommended products & stockists
For unsurpassable flavour, look out for cultured butters – the pinnacle of butters! As a fermented food, they also contain a dose of probiotic bacteria, great for gut health. Traditionally, butter was made by leaving milk to sit until the cream rose to the top, during which time it started to ferment and sour slightly. The cultured cream was skimmed off and churned, creating butter with a wonderfully rich, full flavour and slightly sour tang. Today, the process is replicated by souring cream with live cultures. Read more here, Why you should upgrade to cultured butter.
Here are my top two faves:
Bungay Butter – the best butter in the land and the UK’s only raw milk cultured butter. Made by Fen Farm Dairy in Suffolk, from their own herd of grass-fed, ancient-breed cows. Available locally from Mellis (£5.50/200g) and online from the dairy’s shop.
Isigny Ste-Mère Unpastuerised Salted Butter – the champagne of French butters. A raw milk cultured butter from grass-fed cows in the Isigny Ste-Mère PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) region of Normandy. Available from Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, £3.70/250g.
Isigny is a great everyday choice. Bungay is a real treat: rich, creamy, and complex, the flavour it gives to beurre noisette is truly exceptional – as good as any pudding or dessert!
Serving suggestions
Here are some of my top fave ways to enjoy it:
A teaspoon drizzled over groat porridge, simply AHmazing with tart Bramley apple compote and a scatter of roasted hazelnuts
To cook an omelette – insta omelette upgrade!
Through any other fave veggie mash
To tart up any cruciferous veg – fats and sweetness tame their slight bitterness
Over white fish with a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle of parsley – as in the classic French fish dish, sole meunière
In baking.
References
Salminen S, Collado MC, Endo A. et al. The International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of postbiotics. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2021;18:649–667. Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-021-00440-6#citeas.
Vinderola G, Sanders ME, Salminen S. The Concept of Postbiotics. Foods. 2022;11(8):1077. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9027423/.
U.S. Department of Agriculture. FoodData Central: Butter, salted. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/173410/nutrients [Accessed 29th March 2023].
Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). Saturated fats and health. London: SACN; 2019. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/saturated-fats-and-health-sacn-report [Accessed 29th March 2023].