One Ingredient Will Take Your Frosting To The Next Level

In a world where people can't seem to agree on the proper amount of frosting for baked goods (I'm a "pile it high" kinda guy, myself), we all converge at one point: however much or little frosting you use, it should be tasty. Not even necessarily high quality. Just tasty. To you, that could look like a delicious lump-free homemade buttercream, or it could be a spoonful of your favorite frosting straight from the can you bought it in. The point is, you don't need to break the bank on high end ingredients to take your frosting to the next level. In fact, you only need one ingredient that's fairly accessible. Butter.

I'm not suggesting you just add room temperature butter into your frosting; that would just turn your canned frosting into buttercream which is delicious but not what we're going for here. I'm talking about brown butter, the liquid gold that instantly elevates anyone's kitchen creations. Bakers use it to bring out the rich flavors in chocolate chip cookies, to add some caramel-y notes to aromatic cinnamon rolls and much more. You can use it as an ingredient in your favorite frosting recipe to add a rich, toasted nutty quality to it. I personally think it shines brightest when paired with flavors like chocolate, vanilla or espresso, but the sky's the limit, and you can test different combinations out to your heart's content.

For the brown butter itself, cook the butter down on medium or medium-low heat. High heat could burn it, and low heat will have you standing in front of the stove for ages. The key to a next level brown butter is to cook your butter evenly. It requires pan babysitting and constant stirring, but the good news is that it only takes around 5 to 8 minutes to brown a good butter. It's best to use high quality, unsalted butter so you have full control of the taste and saltiness of your final product, especially if you're going to be adding it to something sweet like frosting.

To get the best brown butter frosting, don't incorporate your brown butter when it's still piping hot. You want it to be liquid, but you don't want it to liquefy or cook the other ingredients in your frosting. Do this by pouring your brown butter from the pan into a glass container and letting it cool on the counter–not in the refrigerator–for 30 to 60 minutes. Add it to your frosting once it's cooled. Make sure you mix well and most importantly, don't strain out the little brown bits! Those are the cooked milk solids and they're what give brown butter that decadent taste. From here, you can just use your frosting as normal, even if your baked treats will be far from the norm once crowned with this jewel.